


and therefore is winged cupid painted blind

by thewinterose



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Aphrodite!Akito, Buckle in kiddos we're getting mythological, Eros!Kyo, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Inspired by Eros and Psyche (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Non-Graphic Violence, Period-Typical Sexism, Psyche!Tohru, Soulmates, underage bc tohru is 17
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-10-27 16:23:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 29,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20763362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewinterose/pseuds/thewinterose
Summary: Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgement taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste. -William ShakespeareOr:Tohru, a young princess looking desperately for a husband, finds herself caught in a feud between two powerful gods: one who wants her dead, and one who wants her heart.





	1. the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> as someone who was a greek myth hoe/percy jackson fan in middle school, let me just say that this was a longtime coming. also! me choosing the myth of eros and psyche was done partly because of the beauty and the beast meta that i did forever ago. i hope that you guys enjoy this!

_These things declare to me from the beginning, you Muses who dwell in the house of Olympus, and tell me which of them first came to be. In truth at first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and **Eros**, fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them._

_-Hesiod, Theogony_

* * *

“Have you heard?” Shigure asks as he strokes her hair, his fingers rough, his discarded tunic fouling her chambers with the smell of gore, and her mood, as a result. 

Akito tenses, a line appearing between her flawless dark brows. He only ever takes on that tone when he’s attempting to provoke her. Nonetheless, she is still sated and happy from their lovemaking, and she drifts a hand up his side. “Heard of what?” she asks, pressing a languid, drugging kiss to his jawline; the kind of kiss that shuts him up.

However, today her lover seems determined to talk, and he ignores her. “I have heard it whispered that there is a mortal girl on Earth who is equal to you in beauty.”

Akito laughs even as something twinges in her chest. Still, she waves her hand around dismissively. “A new princess must be born then. Humans are always blasphemous when they’re celebrating, especially when they celebrate us,” she says snidely, her expression souring. 

Shigure sits up suddenly, pulling her with him and dragging her over his lap, resting her snugly against him, poised to enter her again if he decides to. Again, Akito wants to laugh at his audacity; the utter gall he has, thinking that he has any control here when sex is _her_ dominion. But still, she shifts against him, sparking his excitement, willing to play his game. She will never refuse a lover. 

“Ah, but this mortal princess is not a child, but a young woman. I have heard that the humans have begun neglecting your altars. They turn to this princess now.” He laughs, kissing her frowning lips. “Why, some even say that she has surpassed you in beauty, my dear goddess. What will you do now that a mortal woman has claimed your title as ‘fairest’”

Akito snarls, pushing him down by his chest and sinking down onto him harshly, her hips snug against his own. Briefly, she feels a spark of shame over how quickly she gave into his attempt to antagonize her, but her wrath and jealousy wins out. She has known his eye to wander in the past, and she will be damned if he takes a simple, ugly, mortal girl as his lover over her.

She lifts up again and sinks back down, grabbing his wrists and holding them over his head, maneuvering her thighs to hold his in place, trapping him beneath her weight. 

And as all things go with them, she takes from him roughly and pretends that he takes nothing in return. She pretends that she has all the power and his devotion, and plays into his twisted game of love for her. 

When she’s done, she’ll deal with the girl. 

* * *

“Tohru! Tohru!” 

The young princess turns around, sliding off the warm rock she made her seat, and walks towards her aunt. At the sight of the disapproving grimace on her face, Tohru winces, reaching up to fix her disheveled, intricate braids from this morning, and to straighten out her knee-length chiton; soft pink and made for a girl. Perhaps that is the reason for her aunt’s discontent. 

The marriage talks have not been going well, and apparently, it is because of Tohru herself. According to her cousin, that is.

Tohru approaches her aunt and bows her head in deference for moment before looking up to catch her stern gaze. She winces.

Her aunt circles her once, clucking her tongue slightly in disapproval. She reaches out and takes a lock of Tohru’s brown hair into her hand, running her fingers over the mussed braids. Ashamed, and slightly fearful of what her aunt plans to say, she bows her head once again, keeping her gaze solely on her sandaled feet. 

“Aunt-”

“Tohru,” she smoothly interrupts, tugging on her hair. “Do you know why we expect you to marry?”

Tohru closes her eyes hard and nods slowly, feeling her nails bite into her palms. She hates this conversation. She hates the disappointment; the shame she feels.

“Yes, my lady,” she says quietly. 

Her aunt’s tugging fingers wrap themselves around her lock of hair; a warning.

“And why is that?”

Tohru tugs her lip in between her teeth, gnawing on the plush flesh. “Because it is my duty to-”

“Yes, that’s right,” she says cooly. “It is your duty to marry for the sake of our family and our country. Your grandfather was exceedingly generous when he took you in after your _mother_ died-” Tohru keeps herself from grimacing at the clear disdain in her aunt’s voice just then “-despite how difficult our relations with other kingdoms became after Katsuya’s death. We cannot support an unwed woman indefinitely, dear. Your cousin has already found her match, and your other cousin cannot afford to continue this generosity for much longer.” 

Tohru feels her eyes sting, the sight of her feet growing increasingly blurry as the seconds pass and her aunt’s reprimand sinks in. She knows all of this. She knows. She knows how tempestuous their relations are with the neighboring city-states. She knows about how poor the current crop season is; how poor it’s been for years now. She knows, she knows, _she knows_-

And her cousins say that it’s her fault. That the offerings left at their door and the prayers spoken in her name have incurred the wrath of the gods for her presumption. They claim that she has cursed them. Tohru doesn’t say that she never asked for this. In the end, honestly, it doesn’t matter. She feels guilty for it anyway. 

Her aunt’s hand falls beneath Tohru’s chin and she lifts her head, forcing her to meet her eyes. At the sight of her tears, her aunt coos, unwrapping her fingers from her hair and moving them to smooth down the braids at her crown. 

“Don’t cry, sweet girl,” she soothes, cupping her cheek. She looks up, sniffling, ashamed at her tears and yet relishing in this small comfort, searching for a ghost in her aunt’s harsh features. 

She leans in closer, moving her hand from her cheek to grasp her chin between two fingers before pulling her close. “Don’t fret, darling. Just try harder. The gods have already blessed you with beauty, but you need to remember your duty as well.”

Tohru sniffles and closes her eyes, attempting to gear up her determination. Ready to try harder for her family. 

When she opens her eyes again, her aunt is gone and the tip of her chin smarts, but Tohru plops down on the grass and settles onto her knees. She reaches around and starts grabbing the loveliest roses that she can find, holding them tightly between her fingers, feeling the thorns bite into her flesh. The small pinpricks of blood meet the stem of the flower and Tohru holds them out as tribute; an offering to the goddess. 

She presses her lips to the petals, feeling them brush silky-soft against her open mouth. “Please,” she says. “Please, please, please.”

_Grant me a husband. Any husband. Help me help my family, revered goddess, and I shall forever be indebted to you._

* * *

Akito looks into her mirror, staring almost obsessively at the face of the mortal girl; the same one who had the gall, the utter presumption to claim to be as divine as she. She stares at her large, doe-like brown eyes, the plush curve of her lips, the dainty point of her chin, the overall delicate set of her features. She was almost overwhelmingly feminine, disgustingly so. Purposefully so. 

Akito sneers and slams down the mirror, shutting off the divine connection, and looks at her own reflection. She pulls at her face, studies her flawless features, feels the soft skin beneath her fingers. She is more beautiful. She was made to be more beautiful. She is beauty itself. The girl would learn for her hubris. 

Akito picks up her mirror again and reopens the portal, watching the ugly mortal girl get up from her spot on the grass and dust the dirt off her knees. Akito laughs at the sight. 

She truly was just a girl. She had none of the finesse of a woman grown; none of the confidence required to truly claim the title of beauty. Shigure was wrong, as he always was. This girl was nothing compared to her. She would show her. 

“You want a husband, you miserable wretch?” she asks the human, blissfully ignorant and dumb behind the glass. “Any husband?” She coos mockingly at the hand mirror. “Well, never let it be said that I was not a generous goddess. I do answer the prayers given to me, after all.” 

Akito puts the mirror down again and gestures at one of her maidservants. She smiles gently at the nymph as she approaches. 

“Dear, can you fetch someone for me? I have a task for the _Protogonos_.”

* * *

Kyo noticed the young nymph standing a few feet away from him nearly ten minutes ago, but he felt no need to acknowledge her then, just as he feels no need to acknowledge her now. He recognized her face. She was one of Akito’s. 

The nymph, for all of her placid respect and obedience, must have noticed his attempts to ignore her, because she takes a hesitant step closer, her dark eyes fixed on his profile. “My lord,” she calls softly, bowing her head before him.

Kyo notches another arrow and aims. 

“My lord,” she calls again. Her voice sounds strained. Annoyed.

Kyo releases the string and watches the arrow embed itself firmly within the center of his target; a bullseye again. Not that he would expect any less at this point, however. 

The nymph clears her throat softly but firmly, and he finally concedes, turning to her and lowering his bow, his brows pulled in heavily over his eyes. “Yes?” he bites out, not even bothering to hide his aggravation with her.

The nymph, to her credit, does not cower before him like Akito’s other simpering handmaidens; spoiled and useless and gullible to rumor as they were, but beautiful, which was why she tolerated them. 

_Ah_, he thinks. This one has been around for a while. _She’s seen too many of her lady’s fits to be afraid of me._

Kyo crosses his arms and stares down at the maidservant when she does not answer, already knowing what she’s here to say anyway. “Akito called for me hasn’t she?” he asks, making no attempt to hide how little the idea appeals to him.

The nymph’s expression does not change at his blatant show of disrespect. She just nods calmly, her hands folded serenely in front of her stomach. “Yes, my lord,” she answers. 

Kyo sighs through his nose, glowering at the girl for a moment before slinging his bow across his back. He bites back the guilt that threatens to rise within him. He has no issue with this woman. He shouldn’t be so blatantly discourteous simply because her lady is a wretched bitch. 

“Thank you for telling me then,” he says casually, avoiding looking at her. “You are free to do as you wish for now.”

The nymph jerks back abruptly, shocked at his dismissal. “My lord, my lady still may need me-”

Kyo waves his hand about, nonchalantly refuting her worries. “There’s no need. I’ll simply tell Akito that I gave you a moment to yourself and to request your aid again when it is convenient for her.”

The nymph stares at him, something about her demeanor giving him the impression that she thinks him simple. Kyo feels himself bristle, and he forces himself to swallow down the growl that rises within his throat.

The nymph steps back when she notices his poorly-concealed anger, her knuckles white over her stomach. “My lord, I do not believe that it is within your jurisdiction to-”

He turns on her abruptly, his eyes flashing gold, his voice deep and primordial. _“_I am of the _Protogenoi_. I decide what is within my power and jurisdiction. Not your upstart lady,” he growls at her, allowing himself a moment to relish in her obvious fear, the _Khaos_ within him feeding upon it, before forcing himself to calm. Once again, he stamps down the resulting guilt. 

He looks away from her to stare straight ahead. “Go,” he says, almost gently, before he walks forward, dreading the moment he has to see his _mistress_.

* * *

Almost immediately, he runs into Shigure, the war god no doubt having left Akito’s chambers just moments prior. 

Shigure winces in false sympathy when he sees him, and Kyo doesn’t bother to hide his irritation when they make eye contact. Shigure always pisses him off. 

He stops in front of him. “I take it our lady has just called for your services then?” he asks, resting a hand on Kyo’s shoulder.

Kyo glares at him for a moment before shrugging off his touch, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. “She’s not my lady,” he grouses. “But yes, she has.”

Shigure laughs. “Hopefully not for the reasons that I think. That would be in poor taste.” His eyes flash then, something strange and mercurial. “Although not wholly unexpected of her.”

Kyo bites back a smirk at the pointed remark. “She wouldn’t need me for that. She has hundreds of lap dogs at her beck and call, including you,” he says, before continuing. “Besides Akito is disgusted by me. She doesn’t want me in her bed.” 

Shigure straightens up, but only slightly. Kyo has the feeling that he’s relieved him somehow. What he sees in that woman he’ll never know. 

“Is that so? You must find that regrettable then,” he says. 

Kyo scoffs, rolling his eyes and barely refraining from shivering in disgust. “Never,” he hisses, vitriol coloring his face. “I would rather die. Both of us.”

Shigure laughs and puts a hand on his shoulder again, but Kyo, distracted by his anger, hardly notices it. 

“It’s a good thing then,” he whispers. “That that is not the task Akito has in mind for you.”

Kyo blinks, clearing the red haze from his mind, and looks back to Shigure, furrowing his brows in confusion. An awful sense of nostalgia and dread curdles up within him. 

“Don’t tell me-“

He claps him on the back, sending Kyo stumbling a couple paces ahead. He’s already walking away by the time he rights himself and he glares at the other god’s retreating back over his shoulder. 

“Hey, fucker-!”

“Save your anger for the goddess, Kyo! She’s a veritable volcano today! You may need it to stay on your toes!”

Kyo scoffs, but decides to heed his words. If anyone knows Akito’s moods it’s Shigure. If he says that she’s angry then she must be seconds away from disintegrating the poor wretch who incurred her wrath. 

He walks forward, idly wondering who did it and how. Some man who left his wife in a marriage that she blessed herself, perhaps? Or maybe even a mortal lover she’d taken who moved on, wise enough to understand that a human could never hold a god’s attention for too long? 

Kyo shakes his head to clear his train of thought. Akito was a jealous and sensitive creature. Anything could set her off. It was stupid to even question the cause.

He reaches her chamber door and gives himself a moment to adjust the bow across his back and the quiver hanging at his hips, each arrow tipped with either red or blue, and dangerous. 

When he’s done, he opens the door and walks in, immediately matching gazes with a deceptively calm Akito sitting at her vanity. 

Almost instantly, he tenses up at the sight. 

He nods his head at her in a show of respect; more for posterity and custom than anything else.

Akito liked her traditions. 

She stands up from her seat and walks over to him, stopping several feet away. She inclines her head for a moment as well; an acknowledgement of his age and power, in spite of the fact that he technically works beneath her. 

For all that Akito spouts that she is beauty and grace itself in the form of divinity, she knows just as well that _he_ is love and desire personified; the very same things in which she shares dominion with him. 

“Kyo,” she greets calmly, folding her hands demurely in front of her. 

“You called.”

She smirks. It pisses him off. “I did.”

He crosses his arms. “Did you need something worth my time? Or are you simply bored enough to instigate another war?” he asks snidely, ignoring the rational thought that perhaps initiating an argument with her right now was a bad idea.

Akito sneers, her dark eyes flashing, her aura beginning to pulsate around her, a testament to her own age and wrath. Still, she refuses to let it go any further. Her anger only shown in her tightly crossed arms and sour expression. 

“Please, Kyo,” she scoffs. “Don’t tell me you’re still sore over _that_!” 

He barks a laugh at her, resting one of his hands at the dagger strapped to his side, his stance tensing. “Of course you wouldn’t understand. It was only a war that you started, after all. What reason would you have to care about it? To care about dragging me into it and making _me_ the villain?” he snaps, his tone sharp and biting. 

Akito glares at him fiercely, her eyes spitting fire and her sharp nails digging into the flesh of her arms; veritable talons poised to strike him if he crossed her. He would know. She’s done it before. 

She turns away from him and marches back to her vanity, sitting down in one sharp movement and directing her glower back to him. “Forget the Trojans for a moment, you disgusting wretch,” she spits at him. “That’s not why I called you here.” 

Kyo tenses even further. After a moment of hesitation, he approaches her at her vanity and looks over her shoulder, watching her fiddle with her hand mirror. 

“What? Is there a mortal couple you want me to bring together?” he asks, relaxing. 

Akito laughs then, something cruel and ugly and spiteful, and just as quickly, his back straightens at the invisible threat. “Not quite,” she answers gleefully. 

She taps the mirror and a mortal girl materializes behind the glass, her face turned away, but her profile visible. Kyo feels his breath catch in his throat at the sight of her, something in his heart unfurling and turning liquid. 

She was breathtaking. 

“She’s pretty,” he says tonelessly, his stomach sinking as dread settles over him. He knows that look in her eye. She’s jealous. 

Akito scoffs harshly, slamming the mirror down on the table. She glares up at him. “I wouldn’t be surprised that you would think such a thing, simple man that you are, but even still, the mortals seem to agree with you. Even worse, they think that she is beautiful.” 

_She is,_ he thinks. _She really is._

He scoffs at her. “Beautiful mortal women are born every day. Why does this one capture your attention?” he asks, his tone and stance suggesting how ridiculous he finds the situation. 

“It’s not just that. They think that she is more beautiful than _me.” _

Kyo grits his teeth. He knows where this is going.

Akito smoothly turns to him, allowing her gaze to fall upon his hips, her eyes hungrily fixed at his heart-rending arrows. 

The dread sitting in his stomach feels akin to a rock. She’s scheming something. He knows that particular expression as well as he knows his own mind. 

“Akito-“ he begins warily. 

“Kyo, this unfortunate girl has begged me to find her a husband. She is a princess, you know, and princesses are dependent on marriages for their future. I ask that you find her a husband,” she commands, looking all too serene.

Kyo gives her a moment. He knows that she’s not usually so gracious to someone she considers a rival, if ever. 

“However, there is a very specific husband I have in mind for this girl.” Her dark eyes meet his, and he shivers beneath the perverse hatred that shines within them, as bright as stars; even in her anger, Akito is beautiful. 

“I want you to find a monster for this human. I want you to make her fall in love with it, and not just any kind of love either, but the kind that you specialize in: the frantic, all-consuming kind of love. I want her to go mad over this monster, to only feel sated when it is within her and then to feel the madness again when it is not. I want to drive her insane. And after, I want to see what her people think of their Earthen-goddess then, rutting herself against a beast like a _dog _and ask them if they could ever again forget the name Akito.” 

Kyo stares at her in silence, stunned by the sheer vitriol and hatred with which she speaks of this girl. This girl, who’s done nothing but ask for a husband. This girl, who’s only sin was to be born more lovely than a goddess. 

Perhaps he should kill her then. It would be a mercy on his part. Better to be murdered than cursed by Akito. 

Kyo shakes his head, dismissing the thought. He has no particular regard for this girl. Why risk incurring Akito’s wrath for the next century over her pound of flesh when he could just as easily shoot her into a frenzy and then move on? He cares nothing for the girl. He may pity her, but not enough to make himself an enemy of Akito at the moment. He doesn’t enjoy the thought of the headache that would follow if he did. 

“Do you have a monster in mind?” he asks, taking a blue-tipped arrow in hand and studying it, balancing it onto his finger for moment before sliding it back into his sheath. 

Akito grins at him, the edges of it vicious, but never ugly, and turns back to her vanity mirror, running a hand through her silken black hair. 

“Oh, I’m sure you can do a well-enough job of that yourself, Kyo. Just do as I ask and I shall be out of your hair,” she says smoothly. He meets her stare through the glass and takes note of the victory shining in her eyes. 

He shakes his head and looks away, scowling into the air. “Whatever,” he grouses. “That’s all I want anyway.” 

He turns to walk away, striding towards the door leading to her balcony. He slides his bow from his shoulders and unfurls his wings in one great, powerful flap, the rattling of several items in the room informing him that he knocked down several of Akito’s things. He smirks.

He looks back at her, grabbing an arrow and notching it on the string. “It may take me a few weeks to find a suitable monster for your princess. Even more, it may take me some time to set up a trap to lead the princess to that monster. I would advise you to be patient,” he says. 

Akito turns to send him a bland look. “_You_ are going to lecture me on patience?” she asks, her tone disbelieving. 

Kyo sneers at her, bristling from the jab. “Do you want me to fucking do this well or not?” 

She rolls her eyes and turns back to her reflection, dragging her long fingers through the fringe of her bangs. She waves her hand dismissively at him, evidently deciding to ignore him. 

Kyo sends her one last hateful look over his shoulder before he stares forward, spreading his wings wide and taking off with a powerful flap, shooting down to Earth. 

First, he’d have to find the young princess.

* * *

Tohru sits mournfully at the grass, absentmindedly weaving a crown of roses, half-heartedly hoping that gifting her aunt with something beautiful will distract her from the ire that’s sure to come her way. 

She sighs and nibbles on her lower lip, a brief sting of pain flaring as she bites down on a wound on her reddened mouth, but she keeps on. It feels good, in a way, to punish herself in this minor fashion.

She’s failed yet again. 

It only took about ten minutes this time- a sure record at this point- for her suitor to back off and declare that he could never marry a woman such as she; that it would be a crime to sully one so divinely beautiful with his mortal fingers. Tohru had attempted to persuade him. She had grabbed his hand and asked him with dewy eyes and a soft touch if he could change his mind, but the prince had remained absolute and had even seemed further emboldened by her emotional display. He claimed that her beauty was the type to be admired from afar, same as the gods.

Tohru had ignored the sting of panic that his statement brought, her cousins’ ominous whispers of curses and the gods wrath making her go cold, but she had pushed her fear aside. She was too insignificant to capture any god’s attention, much less either their love or their hate. She was just being paranoid. 

“Besides,” she whispers to herself, running a fingertip across a silken rose petal, “The only anger I need to worry about is Aunt’s.” She whimpers. “Oh, she’ll be so cross with me!” 

Not that Tohru didn’t deserve it. She does, undoubtedly. She can be such a foolish girl, to make promises and be unable to keep them. It was shameful. Her mother would’ve never done that.

Tohru clenches her fist, her somber expression morphing into one of determination. She holds it up and shakes it once. Even if this suitor might not have wanted her, the next one might! She would just have to try harder! Be more charming! Sweeter, perhaps! Be more of what something men looked for when searching for a wife. And besides, she still has time to secure a husband before her attempts start to look sad and desperate. After all, she had only seen ten and seven summers; she was young yet. 

A sudden rustling in the bushes pulls her from her thoughts and Tohru’s head snaps to the direction of the sound, her heart launching into her throat. She was sitting in the lands within her family’s fortress without protection. Any manner of man or beast could attack her. For a moment, her mind traitorously reminds her of the countless girls that have been kidnapped or killed beneath their family’s noses, and her body shakes, tensing, her leg muscles preparing themselves to run before she’s even aware of it.

However, she is taken by surprise when, instead of the bear she had been expecting, a strange looking rabbit hops from the bushes and stares keenly at her. 

Tohru holds it’s gaze, blinking rapidly, her heart’s rapid pace calming, before she smiles and proceeds to giggle at the absurdity of the situation and her fear. The rapid fade of her adrenaline adds a hysterical undertone to her laughter. 

The rabbit cocks its head at her, as if confused, and she can feel her heart positively melting at the sight. It was such a strange looking rabbit too! With it’s uncommonly long legs and ears. It’s body looked more elongated as well. It was so mysterious, she had never seen such a peculiar looking rabbit around here before. Perhaps it was some pet brought here by a foriegn family? 

Tohru shuffles closer to the animal, clucking her tongue softly at it, beckoning it closer with two fingers. She should leave it. She would ruin her new chiffon, moving around on the forest floor as she did now, and yet, she could not find it within herself to leave it. She felt drawn to the little creature.

“Come here,” she calls soothingly, her other hand still clutching her crown of roses. “Come here, little one!”

The rabbit simply cocks its head even further, and Tohru laughs softly, completely taken by the sight. 

“Come! You’re such an adorable little bunny!” She giggles as she comes close enough to touch it, her heart skittering as her fingers brush against its lush fur. It does not move away from her. “Albeit, a very strange looking one,” she says, petting it more surely. 

“Funny you should say that,” a voice interrupts, and Tohru freezes, her hand pausing over the animal. The voice was a stranger. A male. Her legs tense once again. 

As if in slow motion, a tall, broad figure emerges from behind the trees, his eyes glowing a hellish amber-red in the shadows. 

Tohru slowly moves back, her stomach dropping. Animals were one form of threat, but random men in the forest were a whole other type of beast. 

She swallows. 

The man finally steps into the daylight, and Tohru freezes for an entirely different reason now, her heart seeming to skitter and then stop completely inside her chest. 

He was gorgeous. 

The patches of sunlight that fell onto his skin highlighted the deep tan of his skin, no doubt a result of his time spent out in the sun. His face was sharp and angular, his expression gruff and intimidating, but his features no less handsome. His shoulders were broad and strong, his arms muscular. 

For some reason, she couldn’t breathe when she looked at him. 

He steps even closer, and then her eyes are drawn to the bow held in one of his large hands, to the quiver strapped across his back. 

She tenses once again. 

The man looks at her for a moment before turning his attention to the rabbit beneath her fingers, it’s ears cocked in his direction, and yet, strangely it’s muscles stay relaxed. Clearly, the rabbit does not take him for a threat. 

“That’s not a rabbit,” he says suddenly, pointing at it. 

Tohru blinks, confused. She turns her attention back to the animal. “It isn’t?” she asks, his statement distracting her from her fear. 

The man takes another step closer and leans down as well, his hands reaching for the not-rabbit. She moves away from him quickly, still wary, missing the brief look of amusement that flashed across his face. 

He holds the not-rabbit up by it’s neck and gestures at it’s ears and legs. Tohru barely refrains from asking him to be more gentle with the creature. 

“It’s a hare,” he says, tugging at one of it’s ears. 

“A hare?” She shakes her head. “I’ve never seen one of those.” 

The man spares her a glance before returning his gaze to the animal. “That doesn’t surprise me. They are not native to this area,” he explains. 

Tohru looks at him through the corner of her eye, her attention caught by the stray beam of light that fell across his head. His hair was the color of the sunset. 

The man glances at her again and she directs her gaze at her feet, blushing, embarrassed by her girlish attraction to him. 

“Well,” he says- and she probably is imagining the note of amusement beneath his impassive tone- “Thank you for holding this for me.” He gestures at the hare. 

Tohru startles and looks up at him, biting back her reflexive _you’re welcome. _“What are you going to do with it?” she asks, wringing her fingers. 

The man looks at her strangely. “I’m going to kill it, obviously. It’s meat.” 

Her expression turns horrified and she starts rapidly waving her hands about in protest. “No, sir, you mustn’t! What if this little one has a family!” she cries, her voice cracking beneath her panic. 

His eyes turn speculative, searching. “It’s just an animal. Why would you care?” he asks, but something about his stance, the way he’s looking at her, makes her think that he’s challenging her. 

Tohru stands straighter, determined, but her voice is soft when she speaks and looks at him. “Anything the gods deem worth living is worthy of our compassion.” 

The man’s expression turns unreadable. “And what if I were starving? What then?” 

“Then you are worth my compassion and I would not object to you hunting that animal. But you do not seem starving, and there is ample game in this forest.” She pauses, and then directs a smile at the hare. “And I’ve grown too attached to this little one to allow you to kill it.”

He looks at her for a long, searching moment, his strange eyes boring into hers, and Tohru lets him, staring back at him with an open expression. 

He breaks off his gaze first, shaking his head and laughing something short and harsh. Tohru feels her heart constrict at the sound. 

She almost asks him about why he seems upset, but the man suddenly drops the hare onto the ground, watching as it scampers away into the trees. He looks back at her, his eyes old and sad, sad, sad. 

It makes her feel off. She doesn’t want him to look that way. Not ever, and with a ferocious vehemence that would frighten her if it didn’t feel so natural. 

“Sir-“

“You are the princess of this region, correct?” he asks abruptly, staring intently at her. 

Tohru blinks once, but nods slowly, the thought that it may be a bad idea to tell this man that she was royalty not registering. “Yes, sir.” 

“It’s not safe for women of your station to be out here without protection.” 

Tohru frowns. “How did you-?” 

The man laughs. “I am a hunter, princess. It is within my nature to notice these things.” 

She snaps her mouth shut and blushes fiercely, her eyes drawn once again to his strong hands and the quiver of arrows slung across his shoulders. 

The man then turns, apparently satisfied with the extent of their conversation, and she finds that she doesn’t want him to leave. She steps forward, her hands reaching. “Sir-!”

He turns his head to look at her over his shoulder, his amber eyes flashing with some emotion that she cannot read. “Careful, princess. Random beasts roam these forests. Some fearsome enough to frighten the gods themselves. I would advise you to be careful,” he says, smirking.

His words make her pause for a second as she digests what he said, but before she can question him, he is gone. The only proof that he was ever here being the slight imprints of his sandaled feet upon the grass. 

Tohru stares at it for a long moment, her heart thudding in her chest, before she steps back, her eyes sweeping briefly across the tree line. She turns to walk back to the direction of the city, her gauzy chiffon skirt brushing against her legs. She forces herself to think of her duty, the promise of a husband, and the idea of it, something that made her feel hopeful just an hour ago, makes her stomach sink like lead. 

Behind her, the crown of roses sits, cooling in the shade beneath the trees. 

* * *

Kyo watches her retreating figure from behind the shadows, his eyes following her intently as she disappears into the horizon. 

His fingers idly trace the tip of one of his dangerous arrows; the blue-tipped one, the kind that stirs a ravenous, never-ending lust that corrupts the mind and deteriorates the body. 

He thinks of Akito’s cruel scheme, her vision for this princess. He thinks of her crying, lying prostrate before some monster, her face flushed and lips parted, moans dripping from her tongue. He thinks of her pretty pink chiffon dress drawn high around her waist, her thighs spread and slick, but not for a husband. Not for a man. Not for him. 

But for a monster. 

It makes him see red. It makes his fist shake. It makes him so explosively enraged that he can feel an ancient wrath- some caged beast- stalk around his chest and turn his ichor to black poison. 

How dare she. _How dare she! _

The girl was mortal. Innocent. Completely insignificant to anyone outside of her family and her people, and yet Akito still hated her for reasons beyond her control. It hits him suddenly, the realization hot and piercing, about how callous the gods can be for the sake of nothing but their hurt pride. 

He thinks of her words. Her open expression. The way her eyes shone when beneath the sunlight, the color of rich, dark earth. What did Akito call her? Their Earthen-goddess? 

He doesn’t know how she could be so wrong. This girl was nothing if not achingly, beautifully human. 

_ “Anything the gods deem worth living is worthy of our compassion.” _

He is struck. 

* * *

In the dead of night, he touches down onto a balcony, his eyes searching out the figure lying haphazardly onto the bed. 

Kyo sighs deeply through his nose and pushes down the irritation that flares up through his stomach. It wouldn’t do him any good to ask for a favor and look angry when doing so. 

He folds his wings against his back, flattening them, and then steps through the filmy mesh of the curtains, approaching the sleeping figure. 

Kyo closes his eyes briefly, summoning the _Khaos_ inside him, allowing it to drift through his veins, to deepen his voice, to show his true age and power. 

When his eyes open once again, they flash a bright, burning gold. 

“_Morpheus_,” he calls, addressing the god by his divinely given name. 

Yuki turns over, his grey eyes drifting open. When his gaze settles onto Kyo, his lips tighten, his face plainly betraying his agitation in seeing him. 

“Kyo,” he greets shortly. He feels his fists clench. 

“Yuki,” he says, voice still deep and ancient, and he notices the way the other god’s shoulders tense. “I have a favor.” 

Yuki narrows his eyes at him. “What kind of favor? Are you on a mission for Akito?” 

Kyo feels a certain kinship then. He knows Yuki disdains her just as much as he does. 

“No,” he says slowly, letting his eyes transform back into their usual amber. “No, this favor doesn’t really have anything to do with her.” 

Their eyes meet, and as Yuki smirks, so does he.

* * *

“I’ve had a dream,” Her grandfather declares the next morning over breakfast.

Her aunt spares him a look, her mouth twisted into a frown and her expression sour. Tohru winces at the sight of it. No doubt she was still upset about yesterday.

When the silence lingers for a couple seconds more, she lowers her hands to the table and turns to her grandfather. “A dream of what?” she asks politely.

His expression falters slightly when he looks at her, and her heart clenches with anxiety. It was one thing for her aunt to be upset with her, but her grandfather...

Tohru wasn’t sure if she could adequately handle that at this moment. 

“I had a dream that you spoke to the Oracle,” he says, finally catching the attention of the rest of her family.

She gapes at him, blinking rapidly in her shock. “The Oracle? For what reason?”

His mouth tightens, lowering his gaze to his food. “To inquire over your future husband.”

Beside her, her cousin laughs snidely and her aunt slaps the table beneath her palms. “Oh please! Her prospects are not so dire that she needs to visit the Oracle!” she scoffs.

Her cousin laughs, resting her head onto her hand. “Aren’t they?” she mumbles sarcastically, causing Tohru to blush down at her lap in shame and her aunt to screech at her daughter for her impropriety.

“Quiet!” her grandfather interrupts, standing abruptly. Tohru instinctively moves to help him, but a stern look from him in her direction stops her in place. “You must see the village Oracle, my dear. I know it in my heart, this dream was a message from the gods.” 

Tohru stares at him for a long moment, her stomach flipping over itself in nervousness and her cousins’ warnings once again racing through her mind. To see the Oracle was a serious thing. To be advised to see the Oracle- especially by an act of divine intervention- even more so.

When her grandfather’s harsh gaze does not relent, she nods slowly at him, communicating her understanding. His expression softens, looking abruptly sad and old and tired. Looking his age. 

“Good. I will ensure that you have adequate protection when you visit the village,” he says, but his gaze hardens again as he stares at her. “And Tohru, you must remember to tell us everything the Oracle has told you. Do not hold back information that you may find frightening.”

His words bring a certain chill, dread settling into her stomach like lead. She has a horrible feeling. She truly, truly does. 

“You will go this afternoon. Prepare for it,” he orders, stepping away from the table and walking with slow, stilted steps out of the dining hall.

Tohru ignores the curious eyes of her family members, and stares down at her hands resting in her lap. She stares and stares and stares until her fingers turn blurry, and still. 

Still. 

The bad feeling does not dissipate. 

* * *

Hours later, she stands before a small clay hut, her hood drawn high around her face to conceal her identity from the nearby townspeople. 

The guard at her side looks warily at his two partners, eyeing the decrepit little building, before raising his fist and rapping quickly at the wooden door. Tohru watches his movements, so nervous that she can feel her knees shake.

It takes a few moments, and her guard even looks like he’s preparing himself to knock again, when an older, balding man opens the door and directs his gaze right at her. He bows briefly and moves aside, gesturing for the party to come in. Tohru pauses in front of him and he takes her cloak, whispering, “She’s been expecting you.” 

She bites her lip hard, anxiety crawling up the back of her throat. She swallows it down and murmurs back her gratitude. 

The man moves to the head of their group and starts walking, motioning for them to follow. Tohru’s guards protectively form a circle around her, and she wishes that she felt comforted by it, but all she feels is claustrophobic by their proximity. 

The man leads them to a door and knocks once, before opening it and urging them inside. 

Tohru barely notices the spartan interior of the room, her eyes immediately darting to the bedraggled looking woman sitting at the center of the floor before a fire.

She takes in her wild hair, her fingernails caked with dirt, the cracked, black soles of her feet. Despite the fact that Oracles were technically not of this world, Tohru had never seen such an earthly woman. 

She moves to bow, knowing that the woman was of a higher ranking than her in the eyes of the gods, but the Oracle stops her, raising a hand and meeting her eyes, freezing her in place; her eyes were a blank, misty blue. She was blind. 

Even still. “Priestess, thank you for having me,” she says, bowing low before her, her loose hair blanketing her face and hiding her expression. She was still so nervous. She could feel her frantic heartbeat all the way down to her stomach. 

The Oracle doesn’t respond immediately. She simply stares straight at Tohru, unnerving her. How she could even sense where she stood, she doesn’t know. 

She swallows nervously, her lips forming an awkward, hesitant smile. She opens her mouth to speak but the Oracle interrupts her. 

“I’ve dreamed of you,” she says in a raspy, ill-used voice. “I know why you’re here.”

She huffs out a breath as her heart stills in her chest. The man gestures at her to sit onto a cushion before the Oracle and she does so, taking a moment to thank him. 

She turns to the woman again. “My grandfather told me that I needed to see you.” 

The Oracle nods. “Yes. It is on the matter of your husband, correct?” she asks. 

Tohru nods, before remembering that she couldn’t see it. She mumbles the affirmative. 

The Oracle hums and makes a gesture with her fingers. Tohru watches as her attendant rushes over to her with a large ceramic jar in his hands. He sets it over the fire between them and takes a polished, bronze hammer from his belt. With one forceful hit against the jar, it shatters completely, and the contents fall into the fire. 

Tohru covers her nose and turns away, the scent immediately overwhelmingly pungent. Through the corner of her eye, she notices her guards and the man do the same, all of them coughing harshly.

The only one who seems to be unbothered by the odor was the Oracle, who took in greedy lungfuls of the smoke, her eyes rolling back in her head. 

Tohru watches, horrified, as the Oracle raises her hands and presses them against the side of her face, her ragged nails digging into her temples. She starts whispering frantically, her words indistinct, and her attendant rushes over, hurriedly pressing his ear to her lips.

His eyes lock onto Tohru as the priestess speaks, his expression rapidly growing grim as he stares at her. 

Fear claws up her throat, curdles her stomach. She’s never seen something like this before. She’s never seen something so alien, so bloodchilling, as this manic woman and her disjointed whispering. 

_Was this truly the work of the gods?_

Tohru had never been more horrified. 

Eventually, the woman stops, her eyes rolling back completely, her neck strained up towards the air, her fingers buried in her hair, and she collapses onto the floor; her only sign of life being the slight rise and fall of her shoulders. 

Instinctively, Tohru rises up to help her, panicked by the sight, but the attendant stops her, his arms spread wide and protective, concealing the priestess behind him. 

She opens her mouth to question him, to demand he move out of the way, but the man harshly shoves her back, and she trips over her own feet. 

“Don’t come any closer!” he commands, his expression grave. 

She blinks in shock, stepping back. No one had ever spoken to her like this before. “But-!”

“You came here for information on your husband, yes? Well here it is. You will find love. You will find marriage. You will find all it is that you desire. However, your husband will not be of this world. Your husband will not be human. Your husband will be a creature so frightful that even the gods find themselves wary of him. Now leave. My lady’s duty has been fulfilled.”

Tohru stares at him wide-eyed, her stomach hollowed out and the ground beneath her gone. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. _A creature? A husband not of this world?_

_What did that mean? What is that?_

Her heart stops. _A monster,_ she realizes. _I will love a monster._

At the attendant’s behest, her shocked guards take her unmoving form and gently guide her to the door. They have to drag her. She refuses to move. She doesn’t even think that she could even if she tried. 

The wooden door slams behind her and she weeps. 


	2. the middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh its finally finished! im sorry if the editing on this isn't super great but i tried! enjoy!

  
  
  
  


After that day, her family begins the preparations. 

As per the attendant’s instructions, she was to be left at the base of the tallest mountain and dressed in wedding clothes within a week’s time, any later and she would be testing the gods’ patience. 

When she told her family, and after the initial shock wore off, her cousin said that this was only right; that her presumption and assertion over being as divine as the goddess could only lead to this. She said that Tohru’s husband was to be her atonement.

Tohru could not find it within herself to disagree. 

Her grandfather had wept. Her cousin had sneered. Her aunt had gaped in horrified shock. And Tohru had stood in the same manner in which she felt immediately after she cried that first time: completely and totally numb. 

It’s been a week and the numbness still has not worn off. 

Her aunt flutters around her, nervous hands adjusting the crown of white roses placed on her head, smoothing down the uncooperative strands of hair. 

Earlier that morning, her maidservants had bathed her in a tub of scented oils, leaving her skin smooth and supple and luxurious. They then dressed her in a white, flowing chiffon gown that trailed past her sandaled feet. 

If Tohru had been in a mood to laugh, she might have. She looks every bit the blushing bride in a funeral procession. 

Her aunt’s fingers skate down her hair again, straightening it, and Tohru wants to push her away. To tear off the wreath and the dress and to force down the gods from mighty Olympus and just explain that it wasn’t her fault, that it couldn’t be her fault, that in the end all she wanted was to make her family proud. But she couldn’t. She can’t. 

The only thing that she can do is just hope to make it through the day. 

_ Alive, _she thinks tonelessly, morbidly, but she pushes the thought away, afraid of where it may take her.

“Now, dear,” he aunts says, cutting into her dreary reverie, “You must remember to keep your husband happy. To do as he wishes and to bear him healthy children. Keep him in your thoughts and never take another into your bed, but above all-” Her aunt takes her face in her hands, her expression remorseful and foreign- ”Always, always keep faith in the gods. They know why you have been given this path.”

Tohru feels something sharp and cutting bite into the blank numbness that has been her constant companion over the past week, chipping away at her composure. She forces her gaze away and simply nods at her aunt, trying with everything that she has not to cry again. She was so tired of crying. Of feeling despondent. Of feeling anything at all. 

It was the only thing that was keeping her from falling apart.

It was the only thing that was keeping the knowledge of her fate from sinking in, deep and debilitating, and forcing her to confront the reality of her life after today.

“Keep faith in the gods” her aunt said. There was nothing to keep faith _ in _. Tohru had been abandoned.

A knock breaks the silence, and her grandfather’s grim face peeks from behind the door, his eyes sad and defeated once he takes her in. 

Tohru bites her lip hard enough for it to sting. Of everyone, he’s the one that she’s the most afraid for. He tried so hard to keep her together after her father died, and then years later after her mother died too, despite the pain that he obviously went through as well. Now, he would be losing her.

The thought is almost enough to send her racing into his arms, to beg him not to let her go, to promise him that she will find a husband- a different husband. One who is not a monster. One who will not take her from him. 

The sudden influx of sorrow at simply the sight of her grandfather almost completely deteriorates the fragile walls holding her composure together, but Tohru forces herself to stay calm, to appear unaffected, to be strong; it was what her mother would’ve done. 

Her aunt removes her hands from her shoulders and takes a step back, her expression blank as she looks to her father. Tohru watches them. “Is it time?” she asks, and a sudden chill enters the room; unavoidable and potent. 

Her grandfather switches his gaze to her, his eyes fixed on her face like he’s drinking in her features, etching them sharp and permanent into his memory, like he’ll never see her again.

Her heart shudders, and the sob that lodges itself up in her throat and chokes her breath into a stuttering staccato is almost inevitable.

“It’s time,” he says quietly, his voice a death knell. 

* * *

The entire party stands at the base of the mountain, waiting, watching, curious eyes peeled for the inhuman creature destined to take Tohru as his bride. 

Her hands clutch tightly at a bouquet of dark red roses, fragrant and lovely, a stark contrast to the pure white of her gown and heavy veil. Tohru wants to pick at the petals, to bring them in and hold them against her lips, the way she always does, but a part of her also wants to rip them apart, to watch them fall into lovely little pieces on the ground; and her gown too, and her veil. She’s never been so angry.

She’s never been so afraid.

One by one, the procession starts to leave, slowly beginning to realize that Tohru’s husband would not present himself to them, until only her grandfather remained.

She can’t stand the idea of him being there, can’t stand the sensation of his eyes burning into her shoulders, taking her in and bleeding her dry until she’s nothing but a sad memory. Something for him to forget about but keep close to the heart, just in case he ever decides that he wants to think of her again.

Tohru doesn’t want to be a memory. She knows that in his eyes, she is dead, or will be, once he finally walks away, but the idea of it is something that she finds wretchedly disturbing; to be a living corpse in someone’s eyes.

She turns around, her eyes alight with anger. With tears.

“Go!” she yells, waving the horrid flowers furiously at him, like a weapon. “Go! Leave!”

He doesn’t move, his eyes still unspeakably, terribly sad. It breaks her heart. It wrenches it entirely and twists her insides until she’s nothing but a shaking, bleeding mass, full of nothing but anger and despair and a deep, cataclysmic _ sorrow. _ She feels like an outsider looking in; like a girl who mourns herself.

It’s unthinkable. It destroys her fragile walls and leaves her naked, an eager recipient for pain.

She turns away and clenches her eyes shut, burying her face against the flowers until she can sense nothing beyond them. Her tears fall silent and land on the rose petals, and she wonders what will happen to them once she’s finally gone. Will they wither away and die like ordinary flowers? Or will they melt into the ground and sprout? Will families travel here, years later, and tell stories of the girl who wed a monster, of the girl who’s sadness was so great that flowers bloomed and ached with the emotion?

It’s such a silly thought. Childish, really. But still she wonders. She turns it over and over in her mind for hours, until her grandfather is gone. Until she falls asleep on the grass. 

* * *

She wakes hours later to a soft touch on her shoulder.

She springs up, her nerves frayed, but still cognizant to the purpose of her being on the mountain. 

She looks up and she expects to see the monster that haunted her nightmares, slack-jawed and hungry for human flesh, but instead, a handsome man stands above her, his form tall but the edges of him blurred and wispy, as if she could reach through him.

Even still, his intense beauty is enough to rob her of her breath; she had never seen hair his shade of reddish-brown before, and his gentle, placid features were another matter entirely. 

Tohru stares up at him in shocked silence. _ Was this her husband? _

“You are the princess, yes?” he asks, his tone as soft as whispering winds, and yet strangely, ripe with hidden power. 

She finds it unsettling, because, for all that this man _ looked _human, he very obviously was not.

He stares down at her expectantly for a few seconds more before Tohru remembers that he asked her a question, and she startles, standing up and inclining her head respectfully at him, made frazzled enough to fall into the habits of her proper breeding. 

“Yes,” she answers, her eyes still fixed upon the ground. “May I ask who you are, sir?”

When she looks up, the man is smiling at her gently, his face fond and amused. It almost saddens her. He did not seem like the type of man who expressed happiness often; he smiled like he was unused to it.

“I am the man who is to guide you to your new home.”

“My home?” she asks, her mouth tightening. “You must mean to take me to my husband then,” she asks tonelessly.

The man chuckles and reaches around her, taking ahold of her shoulders and placing a hand behind her knee. He sweeps her up and she yelps, tightening her grasp around his neck, too startled to be offended or embarrassed by his impropriety. 

“Come now,” he says, staring serenely down at her. “Your husband will treat you kindly. Of that, I have no doubt.”

Tohru narrows her eyes suspiciously at him, her mind trying furiously to piece together anything she can glean from his words. But even still, they fill her with an overwhelming hope. 

Kind. Her husband would be kind. That was good. That was the most she could hope for.

Suddenly, the man’s hands around her tighten and his eyes close, the wind kicking up around them and swirling until her carefully braided hair flew up over her shoulders. Tohru stares in confused shock as he begins to hover over the ground, the features of his face becoming indistinct and blurry, melting into nothing until he was almost see-through. And yet, his grip was tight. Human. 

She could hardly believe her eyes. 

“Who_ are _you?” she breathes, stunned to her core. 

The man looks down at her, his face as placid as it was since she first laid eyes on him, completely unmoved by her reaction to him. 

“I am _ Zephyr _,” he answers. “The West Wind.” And then with a slight step forward, he takes off, flying over the cliff. 

Tohru shrieks, shutting her eyes and burying her face into his warm, barely-visible neck, refusing to look down. She can feel the rumble of his slight chuckle against her side, but she hardly pays it any mind, hoping with all her heart that her body will do her the favor of releasing her into unconsciousness.

She wonders for the first time if this is a dream; if flying men with the name of gods are something that her subconscious mind conjured in order for her to cope with the stress of her circumstances, but Tohru dismisses the thought. She is to be the bride of a monster. There’s really nothing that should be too far outside of the realm of possibility with that being her reality.

They must’ve been in the air for only a few minutes, before the man touches ground, nudging the crown of her head with the tip of his chin. “Hey,” he whispers, his eyes meeting hers as Tohru’s slowly flutter open. “Welcome to your new home.”

He gently releases her, his grip soft and reassuring as he guides her to the ground. Tohru looks up and almost falls back into his arms again, the breath in her lungs rushing out into a loud gasp. 

She had never seen such a beautiful structure. It was huge, with large, intricate columns that decorated the sides. The doors were tall and golden with wooden accents, and the palace itself was made of all white marble that glowed radiantly under the sun. Even as a princess, she had never seen such wealth before. What sort of manner of creature was her husband exactly, to be as rich as the _ Polydegmôn _?

Tohru slowly walks forward, her hand outstretched, and touches the smooth, grooved marble. It was warm beneath her fingers from baking in the sun. She wonders how long the palace had been standing here and how it could have gone unnoticed by her family for so long. She couldn’t imagine her aunt ignoring such decadent wealth. 

She turns back around, a question forming on her tongue, but the man was gone, not a single trace of him to be found. As if he wasn’t even there in the first place. 

Tohru swallows, nervous now that she’s alone, but she hardly has a moment to reflect on it when suddenly the large golden door creaks open before her. 

She jumps back, startled, her adrenaline spiking, but her insipid curiosity urges her to walk forward, to explore, to take in her new home, and before she’s even fully aware of it, she’s inside, the door slamming shut behind her.

And that’s when the frenzy begins. 

_ She’s here! _

_ She’s so beautiful. The Master has made a wise choice. _

_ I would not call it wisdom... _

_ She’s very thin though, _ a disembodied voice seems to cluck in disapproval. _ How will she carry children with such a small body? _

_ Oh hush! You’re frightening the poor child. _

Tohru crumples to the ground, hiding her face in her knees and covering her ears with the palms of her hands. She can feel tears stinging behind her eyelids, obscuring her vision and making her feel all the more childish. 

_ I want to go home _ , she thinks. _ I want to go home. I want to go home. _

A gentle touch at her right shoulder makes her lift her head and a soft gust of wind blows by her cheek, drying her fallen tears. 

_ Do not be afraid, _ another voice coos, distinctly maternal and calming _ . You will find nothing but happiness here if you do not fear its cause. _

Tohru closes her eyes, letting the words wash over her and grasping at the bare-threads of hope that they give her. She remembers the man’s statement from earlier and her relief at it. Perhaps her husband will be a kind monster, and perhaps Tohru could find contentedness in that kindness. She did not need a sweeping, all consuming love in order to be happy. As a princess, she had never expected it. Maybe her aunt was right, and the gods did have a plan. What if she wasn’t abandoned?

The thoughts give her strength, and Tohru stands up, fisting her hands and looking in the direction of the last voice that spoke to her, wondering, perhaps, if she was mad to so quickly accept them. “Hello. Where is my husband?”

The voice chuckles, and several gentle hands nudge her into walking further down the decadent hall into a large dining chamber, delicious looking food set in front of one chair. 

_ Your husband has not arrived yet. Eat, child, you must be starving. _

Her stomach agreed mightily with the suggestion, but Tohru’s curiosity still had not been satisfied, and she doubles down, stopping to stand in place by the chair. 

“Not here yet? But how-?”

Hands shove her into the chair and shock her into silence, and another voice, a slightly younger one, giggles and says,_ Eat! You must be ready for the Master! _

Tohru bites her lip, frustrated, but heeds their words, pouting only slightly as she bites into the food. The taste of the meat mixed in along with the spices, several of which she had never tried before, all combine magnificently in her mouth and she sighs with pleasure, digging into her meal with gusto. She had hardly eaten in the past week. Her gluttonous appetite seemed to remind her of that fact now. 

She eats in silence for nearly half an hour, completely enraptured by the spread laid out before her, when the voices suddenly explode in excitement, shrieking and gasping and talking over one another. 

Tohru looks in their direction, startled when invisible hands drag her up from her seat and practically push her out of the dining chamber and down the expansive hall. She trips over herself several times in their haste, but they consistently hold her steady, hands grabbing her arms, her shoulders, her waist. 

“Wait! Wait-!” she cries, attempting to stop and regain her bearings.

_ No time! No time! _ one of the voices scolds, pushing her forward once again.

_ Master’s here! _

“Master…?” Tohru asks. 

_ Your husband has arrived. You must be ready for him, _ the maternal voice explains. 

After that, she falls silent, anxiety stealing her voice from her.

Within minutes, the invisible beings practically carry her into a beautiful, luxuriously decorated room with a large, downy looking bed resting against a wall. When she looks at it, her cheeks heat and she forces herself to look away.

_ So adorable! _

_ She is untouched, do you think? _

_ Do not be ridiculous! _ A voice chides, unbeknownst to the extreme blush on Tohru’s face. _ She is a princess. Of course she is. _

Invisible hands reach out and remove her veil, straighten out her dress, smooth down her hair, primping her for her husband. She is too nervous to shoo them away.

_ Already? _she thinks. It was hardly evening. 

She wonders what sort of wedding was this, to be entirely without ceremony. Was it even binding?

Tohru glances at the bed again, her heart racing painfully against the walls of her chest. In any case, if their union was consummated, it would not matter if there was a ceremony or not. She would be bedded and there was nothing her grandfather could do after that. 

_ He’s here! He’s here! _

_ Hush! _

_ Your husband has come! _

_ Be strong, _ a voice urges, her favorite one. _ He will be gentle if you will be open to it. _

Her mother was a strong woman, a huntress, when the occasion allowed for it. She had never inherited her mother’s talent for athletics, but she had her determination in spades. Tohru could be strong.

She nods, and then suddenly, as if magic, the room goes pitch black and terribly silent, the voices gone. She can feel their absence in her gut. 

She looks around, shaken by the sudden darkness, disoriented, but a new voice, young and male and almost painfully familiar, stops her in place. 

“You came.” 

She turns in its direction, reaching outward, when two large, warm hands touch her arms, sliding upward to rest on her shoulders. Callused fingers trail up to touch the side of her neck, a thumb placed over the hollow of her throat, her fluttering heartbeat racing beneath it. 

“Who-?” 

“I didn’t think that you would come,” the voice interrupts, sounding almost— she could hardly believe it, but— happy. He sounded happy.

Tohru swallows, wide eyes blinking up at nothing in the darkness. “Are you my husband?” she asks, voice trembling. 

The voice— the man chuckles, standing so near that she could feel it rumbling against her arm. Her fear spikes and she attempts to move away, but he doesn’t let her. He steps in even closer. “I am.”

“There’s something wrong,” she gasps, shaken and embarrassed by his proximity, grasping at the front of his tunic. “I cannot see you.”

The man grabs her hand from his chest and places it at the side of his neck, his skin warm and rough beneath her fingers. He shifts slightly, an encouragement for her to touch him. 

“You do not need to,” he says lowly, soothingly. “When you can feel me instead.”

Tohru ducks her face, her cheeks heating at the implication, and the man, her husband, laughs, a knuckle skimming against her warm cheek and a large hand cupping it, holding her close. 

She slides her hand down from his face to his shoulder, her fingers gliding down to stop at his bicep, some ridiculous part of her brain giddily noticing his impressive musculature. 

Her husband laughs again, the sound of it almost heartbreakingly beautiful, and Tohru buries her face into his palm, hiding into his hand. 

He must notice her efforts, because he moves his hand from her cheek into her soft curtain of hair, her complete lack of sight making her ultra aware of his movements. 

He tilts her face up, his other hand warm and heavy on her waist, and she looks up into the darkness, blushing mightily and her heart racing, anticipation and nervousness making her knees shake. 

“You shouldn’t hide from me,” he says, his tone almost playfully scolding. “You’re very beautiful, you know.” 

Tohru bites her lip, reflexively flinching at the compliment, her cousins’ taunts fresh in her mind. 

Her husband’s arm wraps tighter around her, almost protectively, and she gasps when he brings her in for a hug, his nose nestled against the crown of her head. Tohru grasps at him, something in her heart sighing at being held, and she wonders what it was about him that made him a monster. 

His arms felt human. What little she felt of his face felt human and warm, the ridge of his jaw pronounced and chiseled beneath her fingertips. He almost felt handsome; the kind of man she dreamed of marrying in her weaker moments as a young girl. 

“You should never fear your beauty,” he says fiercely, his growl muffled by her hair. “And when you’re with me, you won’t have anything to be afraid of anymore. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” he promises. 

His words break something inside of her, and she melts against him, turning her face and pressing a soft, uncertain kiss to the area of skin above his tunic, warm muscle and the frantic beat of his heart meeting her lips. 

She lingers against it, relishing in the closeness of someone so seemingly kind, but the hand tangled into the hair at the nape of her neck moves her back and surges her up against him, her breasts pressed flat against his chest and warm lips crashing into her own. 

Tohru gasps into his mouth, her hands instinctively fisting his tunic. His hand at her cheek curves around her jaw, his thumb falling onto her throat and caressing the delicate skin there, making her dizzy with his touch. 

She had never been kissed this way; had never truly been kissed ever, really. Her short, perfunctory pecks with her younger maidservants, more of a giggly press of lips than an actual kiss, were done more for curiosity’s sake. 

Never before had anyone grabbed her this way, had slanted their warm lips over hers, had pulled her close and stolen the breath from her lungs until she was left panting into their mouth. 

He had hardly begun and Tohru was already infatuated with his kisses. 

He moves from her lips to her cheeks, kissing his way from her cheekbones to her jaw to her throat, lingering there. His mouth pauses at her pulsepoint, and Tohru can feel her heartbeat fluttering frantically against him, caught somewhere between sensation and a gut-wrenching anxiety. 

She can feel the goose-down mattress pressing against the back of her knees, filling her with a sudden knowledge. She has heard bits and pieces of what comes next; of how painful it is for young, virginal girls; of the blood. Tohru’s not sure how comfortable she is with the idea of bleeding in the darkness, lying beside a man who’s face she does not know. Her heart clamps up, and her fingers clench tight at the front of his tunic.

Her husband shifts, his hand falling to her shoulder-blade and his nose nudging against the hair at her ear, the dizzying sensation of his lips on her neck gone. 

He nuzzles into her, pulling her in close. His chest rumbles against her as he speaks, his voice gravelly.

“You are afraid of me?” He asks, sounding disappointed, and her heart clenches for a different reason now. She holds him tighter. 

“I am afraid,” she says. “I do not know what you look like. Nor do I know your name. But-” She bites her lip, embarrassed. “I’m not afraid of you. I just don’t know what comes next.”

Husband laughs fondly, the sound of it musical and masculine and lovely, turning her heart to liquid. “What comes next is that I eat you of course,” he says lightly. “Why else do you think you’re here.”

Tohru squeaks, jerking her face away and attempting to jump out of his arms, but his arms lock tighter around her and he laughs again, like he said something funny. 

“I was joking! Have you never heard a joke before?” he asks, still chuckling, and Tohru blushes furiously, glad for a moment, that he can not see it. 

He shifts, trying to pull her close again, but she stiffens up, glaring mutinously into the darkness. He wraps his arms around her, in spite of her stubbornness. 

“Oh, come now. I was just teasing,” he says, and her mouth purses into a pout. 

“It wasn’t funny.”

“It was funny.”

She doesn’t reply, and he chuckles again, his fingers tilting her face up, his thumb pressing into her lips. 

“You’re _ so _beautiful,” he breathes, like a man fascinated, and she wonders if it is the magic of this place that deems that he can see her but she can’t see him.

“Is that why you married me?” she asks, a touch bitter, a touch curious. She doesn’t know how she would feel being married to someone solely for the sake of her beauty. But then again, wasn’t that what marriage was in the end? Wasn’t her beauty something she planned on utilizing to get a husband in the first place? 

Regardless, the thought brings her discomfort.

He moves in closer, and when he speaks, his lips brush against hers with every word, stirring the dizziness again, and she aches with the urge to pull him closer. 

“I married you because the gods have deemed it so,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. She whimpers, trying to chase his retreating mouth to no avail. 

“How do you know that?” she asks, breathless and trying to distract herself. Her husband’s hand inches down from her shoulder-blade to her side, his fingers brushing against the swell of her clothed breast, causing her to flush red and gasp.

He leans down, his nose bumping against hers, his answer nearly indecipherable, drowned out by the blood roaring in her ears. 

“Because I do. You are mine and I am yours, and our bond is a connection that can never be severed. The gods have decreed it so and I should know.”

Tohru’s brows furrow, and she opens her mouth to inquire further, to figure out what he means, but his lips press against hers, and he steals the words from her tongue. 

He digs his fingers into her hair, her crown of flowers slipping from her head and falling somewhere by her feet. Instinctively, Tohru closes her hands around his tunic, pulling herself closer to him and relishing in the warmth of his body against hers.

She gasps as his mouth devours hers, his tongue slipping from his mouth and dragging across her bottom lip. She sighs at the sensation, and he takes the opportunity to lick into her mouth, melding his tongue against her own.

A slow, curious heat trickles down from her heart to her stomach, and she unconsciously shifts, her knees beginning to shake and her thighs trembling with the force it takes to stand. 

Her husband pulls away just far enough for their noses to touch and he laughs, his hands languidly sliding down her waist to grab her hips. He walks forward and she follows him blindly until the back of her knees hit the mattress, and she sits down on the bed.

She feels him kneel down in front of her, his palms placed securely on her thighs. She finds the action terribly distracting. She wants him to kiss her again. 

“Do you know what happens now?” he asks calmly, his thumbs rubbing circles through the fabric of her dress, making her thoughts hazy. She forces herself to focus on his question. 

“Yes,” she answers, cheeks hot. 

He hums, and she gasps slightly as she feels him slowly inch her dress up her legs and around her thighs, his callused skin sliding against delicate flesh. His palm reaches her stomach and he gently nudges her back, silently instructing her to lie down, which Tohru does without complaint. Even in the darkness, with her skirt hitched up high over her waist, exposing her to him and her knees trembling, she can feel how red her face must look. 

“Do you know what it feels like?” he whispers, his voice deep and gravelly, and a shot of heat strikes right at her lower belly, making her chest heave and her insides squirm. 

She feels his fingers lazily drift up her legs, pausing at her upper thighs to push them further apart, and Tohru gasps when she feels him lean in, when she feels his nose nudge against her, when she feels him kiss her _ there; _a sweet kiss, almost chaste, but it drives a high, keening sigh from her throat, embarrassing her, dizzying her and intoxicating her blood. He’s barely touched her and it’s almost too much. She’s caught between pulling him close and squirming away, scared of the anticipation burning within her. She’s heard women speak of love making before, describing it as a chore to be borne, something to do to keep the husband satisfied and faithful. She doesn’t think it’s supposed to feel like this. 

When she does not answer, he kisses her again, longer, fuller, his tongue darting out and sliding around something _ wonderful _, but before he settles onto it fully, he pulls back, almost making her scream with frustration, trying fruitlessly to catch hold of the sensation burning between her legs and ascribe meaning to it. 

“Tohru,” he says, almost chidefully, and she bites down hard on her lower lip, forcing herself to focus. 

“It hurts,” she gasps, panting hard as his tongue returns to her, curling around something that makes her breath short. “It’s supposed to hurt.” 

_ “It will be painful,” _ they warned. “ _ You must bear it.” _

He hums, and she nearly does scream. 

“How it feels now,” he starts, flattening his tongue and sliding it slowly over her, sucking at her with a frustrating languidness that makes her vision white and her voice hitch, his fingers marking bruises into her thighs. “Is how it’s always supposed to feel. I won’t ever hurt you,” he promises fiercely, and beneath the surging heat, something warm glows within her chest at his sincerity, softer, a flickering flame against the raging inferno that was— she’s ashamed to think it— her lust for him. 

He dives back onto her, lips and tongue devouring her and setting her awash in a flurry of foreign and dizzying sensation. Her fingers absently drift to her clothed breasts, and her loud gasp fades into a moan as her nail brushes against her stiff nipple, shuddering at the shock of intensity that burns right to where her husband’s mouth moves against her. 

With a blind frenzy, Tohru unclips the tops of her dress with shaky fingers, sighing loudly once her breasts are exposed to the almost too-warm air. She cups them fully, running the tips of her fingers around the peaks, pinching them everytime her husband’s tongue laves around something that makes her pulse jump and her lower belly tremble. 

It becomes too much for her when she feels his fingers, long and callused and warm, nudge at her entrance and slip inside easily, thrusting within her at a dizzying tempo. She keens at the sensation, rutting against his touch shamelessly, wantonly, like a loose woman from rumor, and squeezes her breasts hard, her vision white and her lips caught around the word _ husband. _In this moment, more than anything, she wishes that she knew his name. 

She comes down slowly, trembling and slightly mystified, her face itchy and her thighs shaky, slick and wet. 

She feels him crawl up slowly over her body, his lips pressing languid kisses to whatever areas of skin he could touch: her hip, her waist, her throat, the tip of her breast. Once he reaches her lips and she pulls him fully onto her, she burns with need once again, something within her pulsing for his touch. His fingers skim across her breast and she whimpers, the need almost painful; an ache. 

He coos, his hand cupping her cheek, and he presses chaste kisses against the soft ridge of her cheekbone. He shifts again and she can feel the bare skin of his thigh, making her aware of his nakedness, and she blushes, wondering if she should remind him that she’s still wearing her wedding gown. Her fingers drift uncertainly against the fabric.

He scoffs and she looks to his direction, wishing that she could see the shape his lips took when he pouted. His hand pulls at her dress. 

“I was impatient,” he says, almost sounding a bit frustrated. “I should’ve undressed you first.”

Tohru squeaks, embarrassed and shocked at his candidness, her sensibilities quite offended. 

“Really?” he snorts, no doubt amused at her expense. “You become shy at the strangest things.”

She doesn’t reply. She simply blushes in the darkness. 

“Don’t we-” she starts, her voice timid, unsure. “D-Do we not…”

Husband’s fingers drift up her cheek, the action surprisingly loving and gentle. “‘Do we’ what?”

Tohru nestles into his cheek, pressing her lips against his palm and muffling her words. “Do we not make love now?” she asks. 

His fingers slide down, catch hold of the sides of her gown, inching it slowly down her hips. “Do you want to?” he asks softly, a shiver skating through her. 

“Yes,” she whispers, almost without realizing it, but shocked at her own certainty of her freely given consent. She didn’t expect this either. Her willingness in the bedroom was considered irrelevant. She was taught to do as her husband instructed; to take his seed without question and to bear him healthy, living sons, and perhaps a daughter to forge stronger relations with neighboring kingdoms. For this reason, she is caught between her profound confusion at her husband’s strangeness, and her own blossoming affection at his care for her. 

“Good,” he breathes, sliding her dress off around her ankles. “Thank you.”

Tohru opens her mouth, wanting desperately to ask him _ why, why do you care, why do you bother asking, _but his lips return to hers and her tongue melts around his own, and her questions lay forgotten. 

He shifts over her, planting one hand over her wrist and slowly moving her hand until her fingers brush against something velvety smooth and hard. He adjusts her fingers, making her wrap them around the object, and she’s shot with a sudden clarity, all at once vividly aware what she’s touching. 

She gasps and reflexively squeezes at him, and he sucks in a breath, sounding caught between pleasure and pain. “Not so hard,” he instructs, voice tight, and she immediately obeys, blushing furiously. 

After a few moments, his hand returns to her wrists and her guides her into movement, her fingers slowly sliding over him, a slow heat building once again between her legs. “This,” he breaths, “is what I will make love to you with.” Her fingers squeeze at him again, gently this time, and he jerks into her palm, quickening her breath. “Have you ever made love before?” he asks. 

Tohru shakes her head, moving her hand faster now. “No,” she gasps. “Never.”

She hears him chuckle, feels his fingers once again return to her entrance and slide around, gathering up her slick and rubbing at her. “It’s funny,” he says, tone almost idle beneath the strain. “I never have either.”

She almost stops, shocked at his statement, wondering, if, like her, he was untouched as well. But that would’ve been impossible. He seemed too-- too skilled in the art of lovemaking to be pure. 

Her husband slowly pries off her fingers and takes ahold of himself, one hand wrapped around him and the other rubbing her in light, terrible, dizzying circles, and she feels him line up to her entrance, feels him nudging against her. He leans down to capture her mouth in a kiss again, and she grasps at him, gasping loudly as he starts to sink in.

It is not the painful, tearing sensation that she was warned about, that she dreaded, but the stretch of her body accommodating him is an intimate pinch, something that is neither wholly pleasant nor unpleasant, but foreign, strange; her body’s response is to wrap around him, her arms tight around his neck, her legs a vice around his waist. He gives a grunt once he pushes fully inside, and her heart launches all the way up to her throat. 

Her husband shifts up, one hand grabbing the side of her neck while the other palms hard at her waist, his grip bruising and dizzying, stirring an ache. She can not see him now. She hasn’t been able to see since he arrived, but she wonders what will happen if he touches her hard enough; if his fingers dig in deep enough to leave marks where she can see them. 

Something about the thought makes her whimper pathetically, makes her pulse low in her belly, around him, and she feels her husband grip her tighter, hears him groan into the side of her neck. She pulls him closer. 

He thrusts into her again, still slowly, still gently, but surely now, his movements confident. His hand drifts down to her hip and he shifts her up against him, a buzzing sensation starting up between her legs where his skin brushes against her with every thrust. “If you move with me,” he pants, lips sliding up her throat. “It’ll feel better.”

“Y-Yes,” she whispers back, following his instructions, grinding uncertainly against him. The resulting sensation their combined actions stir causes a lump to lodge itself deep within her throat; an ache almost as profound as the one pulsing between her legs.

His fingers drift up her arms and wrap around her wrists, holding them down against the goosedown bed, and she closes her legs tighter around him, her mind going hazy at the feel of him thrusting inside her. Tendrils of something white hot and searing curl around her belly, making her toes and fingers spark at every touch, and she aches to move her hands, to pull him close and feel his warm, muscular build beneath her palms, to claw at him and make it _ more _ ; she gasps into his ear, almost too hypnotized by his tongue and teeth drifting along her neck, but she begs for something better, for him to go _ harder _.

He groans into the delicate, oversensitive skin of her throat, his grip on her wrists almost painful, and obliges, his hips driving into her with an almost single-minded intensity, completely robbing her of breath. 

She struggles against him, desperate to touch him, and when her hands escape his grasp, they fly to his back, clawing at him, and pulling him closer. His chest presses into hers, her breasts flattened against him, and she moans loudly when his fingers fall between her legs again, the sound of him sliding against her almost obscene in the pitch black darkness of the room, silent save for their panting breaths and choked off words.

Whiteness edges in along her vision at the continued stimulation of his fingers and thrusting. She feels it drifting up along her body, an intoxicating dizziness that almost overwhelms her in its intensity. The ache is nearly painful now. She wants to let go and fall into the blissful aftermath that he brought her to with his mouth. She pulls her lips from his with a loud, wet _ pop _and turns them to his ear, moistening it with the heat of her frantic breaths. 

_ “Please,” _ she begs. _ “Please, please, please-” _

Her husband growls thunderously, the sound of it reverberating into her chest and vibrating inside her, all the way down to where they’re connected, and she feels his teeth close around the juncture of her neck, sharp incisors breaking delicate skin, and the wave swallows her whole, cresting over her, blinding her with white. 

Her lips open around a silent scream, and she feels him thrust faster and harder, prolonging the sensation, his teeth still buried in her neck. Within moments, something hot and liquid spurts inside of her, his groan vibrating into her throat, before he slows down and falls over her, his weight heavy but satisfying on top of her. Tohru simply pulls him close, overwhelmed and oversensitive, but happy. Shockingly, deliriously happy. 

She had no idea that it could feel that way. 

Sweaty fingers move down her sides, and he retracts his teeth from her neck, licking at the mark he made soothingly with his tongue. When he finishes, he pulls away, shifting to lie on his back, before he tugs her back over to him, wrapping his arm around her waist. Tohru nuzzles into his side, placing a hand over his toned abdomen. Contented silence lingers for a few moments. 

“Was that your first time?” she asks suddenly.

She feels her husband move to look down at her, her hair shifting with the movement of his chin.

“No,” he says, sounding slightly amused. “Why do you ask?”

Tohru shrugs, a little embarrassed. She circles a finger around his strong pectoral. “You said earlier that you had never made love before,” she explains. 

“Ah,” Husband breathes, understanding apparently dawning over him. “You see, my love, there is a difference between making love and- well. Excuse me for being crass, but there is a difference between making love and fucking.”

She blushes hotly, both at his endearment and his choice of speech. She settles herself more firmly against him, wrapping a thigh around his leg. “And we made love?”

“Yes,” he says, and she feels his hand drifting up her back, tickling her. “We will always make love. Unless you ask for the second choice, of course, which is always an option,” he whispers playfully; she bites her lip, only slightly ashamed at the desire that still simmers beneath her skin, knowing what it feels like now, wanting to know if the second one is any different. Even still.

“Um.”

“Can I ask you a question now?” 

Tohru giggles, her heart jumping at them actually making conversation, at the possibility of them getting along; another thing she was warned about never happening. “Yes.”

“Was that your first kiss?” he asks. 

She pauses, her fingers slowing in their exploration across his toned abdomen. She bites her lip again, embarrassed for a different reason now. “No,” she whispers. 

Her husband’s head snaps to hers, and she buries her face into his side. “Who?” He sounds shocked. 

“Um, a maid I once had when i was four and ten summers. She was my friend,” she says bashfully, her lips curling up at the fond memories. “Her name was Maia.”

“Maia,” he says, testing the name on his tongue. “So that is the name of my rival.”

Tohru scoffs and he chuckles, tugging her closer against his chest, breathing in her scent. “Is she not a rival then?”

“Hardly!” she answers, laughing a bit. “She married years ago to a stable boy my family hired. I haven’t seen her since.” She giggles again, pressing a kiss to his chest, right at his heart. “She was very pretty though.”

“Ah,” he muses, delighted, pinching her side and making her squirm. “So you have a weakness for pretty girls then. That’s one thing we share in common.”

Tohru blushes and falls silent, simply allowing herself to pull him closer, both shocked and exhilarated by his kindness, by their seeming ability to get along. 

“I’m happy,” she whispers, feeling tears sting behind her eyelids. “I’m very happy.”

Her husband’s drifts a hand upward and grabs the one she placed on his chest, holding it over his heart, the pace of it slow and calming, at peace, beneath their palms. 

“I will make you happy,” he promises. “I will spend the rest of my life shielding you from pain.”

Tohru doesn’t know how true that can be, when already her sightlessness around him is painful, when not knowing his name and face is painful. She doesn’t know how she can trust that. But even still. 

Even still. 

She trusts in his sincerity. In his affection and kindness towards her. And above all, she trusts him. She knows that fact with an undying, steadfast certainty. Her cousins had always mocked her for her willingness to believe in people, in her easy compassion and apparent naivety. They said it would one day get her in trouble. 

_ Be that as it may, _ she thinks, holding his hand all the more tighter. _ I will trust him. If I don’t, I will never know happiness here. _

And with that thought, Tohru finally drifts off to sleep, her fingers entangled with his and his other hand warm around her waist.

* * *

_ She comes drifting out of the water, scantily clad in the barest hints of seafoam, doves flying around her face, nuzzling into her flushed cheeks. Her hair is long, silken and curly, exotic. Her skin tanned. It will fade with time once she comes to live on the snowy peaks of Mount Olympus, he thinks. _

_ She stares up at him, her black eyes, bright as stars, catching onto his. He is enchanted just by looking at her. Beauty personified they said. He can not find it within himself to contradict them. _

_ He walks towards her, stopping by the surf, feeling waves tickle at his sandaled feet. She steps just a bit closer, bare breasts nearly brushing against his arm. He feels himself stir at the proximity of her nakedness, at her strategic use of it. She’s smart, he already understands that. _

_ “They sent you hear to collect me?” she asks, her voice delightfully raspy and low, attractive for a woman. It lilts at certain consonants, elongates a bit between breaths. She has an accent. This will also fade with time. _

_ “No one sent me,” he answers, speaking truthfully. “I felt you coming.” _

_ She laughs; a rich, deep sound that makes his loins jerk. “You felt me? How strange,” she muses, brushing a lone finger across his forearm. _

_ Kyo reaches up to touch her, feeling silken, warm skin, before letting go, allowing her to continue her exploration up his arm. “We deities of love have a connection. That is all that I can use as a way of explanation.” _

_ She hums, circling a finger around his bicep. _

_ “You’re an old one,” she remarks, scanning him with shrewd, dark eyes. “I can sense it. You’re older than I am. That must be why the gods here fear you.” _

_ Kyo’s gut clenches, anger briefly flaring at her impudence, but he ignores it. He ignores her statement. _

_ “What is your name?” he asks. _

_ She returns her gaze to him, and his breath catches in his throat; she truly was beautiful, almost painfully so. _

_ “I have many names,” she says. “The Mesopotamians called me Ishtar. The Phoenicians called me Astarte.” _

_ Kyo gives her a considering glance. “I have heard the cults call you Aphrodite,” he says. _

_ She laughs again, nodding. “Yes, that is my name now too.” _

_ He purses his lips. “What is your real name then?” _

_ She looks up at him, her gaze slightly confused. “Is my name not Aphrodite? Is your name not Eros?” _

_ Kyo pulls his arm away from her and crosses them, his quiver resting heavily against his legs. He wonders if she knows what they’re for. “The humans call me Eros. My name is Kyo.” _

_ She blinks multiple times, switching her gaze from her bare feet to his face, her eyes lingering across his features, taking him in, seemingly, for the first time. _

_ “Kyo? If your name is Kyo, then I am called Akito,” she says softly, reaching up to touch him again. He lets her, wondering how long it’ll be before she takes him as a lover. Goddesses like her often take many, both divine and mortal. He wonders how long it’ll last. _

_ “Akito,” he says, testing her name on his tongue. He looks down at her, gently pulling her hand from his neck and entwining their fingers, her skin smooth and tanner than his own. “Come then,” he says, looking down at her. “The God of Gods wishes to meet you.” _

* * *

Her sight returns the next morning.

Tohru wakes, stretching languidly across the bed, reaching instinctively for the warmth for that had layn beside her the entire night, her eyes snapping open once she only feels cold sheets. 

She can see the sunlight beaming down through the window, announcing the arrival of late morning. She purses her lips, disappointed at her husband’s absence and at her own laziness for sleeping in. She swings her legs over the side of the bed, yawning and stretching her arms over her head. She moves to stand and almost falls back down at the pleasant ache that erupts between her thighs, reminding her, with an embarrassing clarity, of her husband’s lovemaking. 

She squeaks, and almost decides to burrow back into her bed, too ashamed to allow any of the voices to see her, when a piece of paper captures her attention. She stands back up, wincing only slightly, and walks slowly over to the wooden bedside table. 

It was a note, she realizes, picking it up. 

_ I’m sorry I had to leave before you woke up. I had some hunting business to attend to and I thought it best to allow you to sleep in. I will be back tonight. Wait for me. _

_ -Your husband. _

Tohru bites her lip, running her finger gently over his lettering on the papyrus. His handwriting was nice, pleasant for a man. She looks back at his _ ‘Wait for me’ _and blushes brightly at the wave of anticipation that rolls through her stomach, that pulses between her aching thighs. 

She slams the note down, deciding quite resolutely that she was _ very _ hungry. 

Almost on cue, her stomach growls loudly and she sighs, relieved at the convenience. 

She walks over to the wide, wooden chest located at the foot of her— _ their _ bed, and opens it, running her fingers softly over the supple fabric of the dresses inside. Her husband’s taste and eye was impeccable. She could tell almost immediately that these would fit her. 

A niggling curiosity eats at her in the pit of her stomach, something inside her asking_ how would he know her size, her preferred cut of dress, her favorite kind of fabric, _but she stamps it down, feeling almost guilty for her instinctual suspicion. Her husband has been kind to her thus far. She should not repay it with meaningless inquiries designed to satisfy the scheming voices inside of her. 

With that thought in mind, she grabs the first dress she sees, something long and colored lavender, and slams down the opening of the chest. She holds the dress up, admiring it briefly, and attempts to clumsily fit it over her head, feeling distinctly childish and useless without the aid of someone to help her get ready for the day. 

_ Oh, well _ , she thinks, maneuvering around. _ I would have to learn at some point anyway. _

When she finishes with only minor difficulty, she runs her fingers through her mussed hair and braids it into a simple plait over her shoulder, tying the ends with a band of leather. Deciding to forgo sandals for the morning, she walks out the door. 

And with this, the voices come back. 

_ She’s come out! _

_ Oh, poor dear, the Mistress must be starving! _

_ Well she must be after a night like the last one, _another voice laughs, almost uncomfortably salacious, and Tohru blushes, looking down squarely at her feet. 

“Um, goodmorning,” she greets, not knowing what to say, and the voices coo again. She rapidly finds herself growing annoyed at their apparent condescension. 

“Is there breakfast?” she asks, interrupting their rapid banter, and the voices all hum in agreement, invisible fingers poking at her back and pushing her forward. Tohru allows herself to be manhandled, wondering where her husband went. Something small and tepid sparks in her heart everytime she thinks of him: a tiny sense of accomplishment and giddiness. She may not know what he looks like, or his family, or his hobbies, or his name even, but she didn’t need that. He was kind. That was all she could have wanted to be content, to be happy even. 

Really. 

“Excuse me,” she starts as the voices guide her to the dining chamber and she steps up to the table, taking a seat in front of a delicious spread of food. “Do you know where my husband is?”

_ No _ , the maternal voice replies. _ He is busy. He will be back tonight. _

“Yes,” Tohru says, smiling politely in the direction of the voice. “Yes, I know. But I was wondering if perhaps-”

_ We are not privy to that kind of information and neither are you. The Master is a very important man. It is not up for us to question him. _

_ Important man? _ Tohru thinks. _ Was he a prince of some sort? A king even? _

“I am not questioning him, of course, but I was just thinking that I-” 

_ We do not know where he is, _the voice interrupts again, firmly, and she fights down the swell of disappointment that rises within her. She toys with the ends of her braid, suddenly feeling not quite so hungry anymore. She forces herself to look up, staring at nothing, talking to beings that she cannot see. 

“Oh,” she breathes. “Of course. I apologize. I was just wondering if there was anything planned for me today. Is there a garden of some sort that I can sit in? I quite like flowers,” she says softly, playing with her fingers. 

_ No there is not, but I’m sure your husband can be made aware of this wish. The surrounding area outside can be of use to you, but you must not travel too far. Your husband has forbade it. _

“Oh,” she breathes again, not knowing to say. “Okay.” 

_ Now eat. You must be hungry. _

Tohru nods and bites into her food. She doesn’t taste anything. 

* * *

Kyo walks quietly down the halls to Akito’s chambers, his thoughts turned inwards, wondering, idly, how Tohru’s day was going so far. 

He already misses her. He doesn’t know how that’s possible considering he’d only just seen her this morning, when he had the pleasure of holding her in his arms the entire night, but he misses her. He misses her with an unbearable, near-painful longing that throbs in his heart and weighs down his feet. 

He still remembers how silky her hair felt when he smoothed it beneath his palms, when he held it tight within his fingers. He still remembers how small her sighs were in his ear when he kissed her neck, and how breathy. He remembers most how soft her thighs felt when wrapped around his hips; the memory of it stirs him even now. 

Kyo has been alive a long time. Almost exceedingly long to some of the lesser gods—and even to him, in his bleakest moments— but he never felt as complete as he did last night when he was holding her; never felt as fulfilled as he did when he was inside her. It felt like something tangible, like something real, like something he could reach out and touch and hold onto forever. 

_ Tohru _. 

He thinks of her and there’s an ache, deep, deep in the hollow of his throat, choking him; it feels like pain; it feels like longing. 

It feels like love. 

Kyo has never been in love before. 

He shakes his head, pushing away his train of thought, feeling almost disgustingly sentimental. He feels the need to shoot something, just to rid himself of the vague, electric buzzing in his veins. Shooting always put him at ease, made him calm; it was the thing he was made for. 

He approaches Akito’s door and smirks, idly wondering if he might get his target practice here. He opens the door. 

“Do you knock? Or are you simply too simple to think of it?” she calls out as greeting, and already he can feel his fists clenching, his instinctive anger at seeing her roaring to be met. He purses his lips and ignores it, grabbing a chair and sitting down on it. 

“Why? Are you indecent?” he asks, unsheathing his dagger and studying it. He notices flecks of blood on the blade and scratches it off with his fingernail. 

“No,” she says, finally stepping from behind her dresser screen, adjusting a sumptuous pink gown that hugged her flawless figure. She laughs then, something short and cruel. “Why? Would you have wanted me to be?” she asks snidely. 

Kyo sneers at her, repulsed now that he had lain with his wife. How he ever managed to fuck this woman, he would never know. 

“Please,” he snaps, clutching the hilt of his dagger tightly, incensed. “You and I both know that we have no desire to return to old _ habits _.” 

“Ghastly habits,” she agrees, sitting down across from him. “But our past isn’t why I summoned you here today.” 

The cold sting of panic lances straight through his gut, and he can feel his knuckles tightening around the hunting dagger, turning white. Akito’s eyes have always been dark, shrewd, searching, but in this moment they seem even more so, now that he has something to hide. 

Kyo sheathes his dagger and crosses his arms across his chest, feigning nonchalance. 

“I have no idea what you could be referring to-“ he drawls, glancing away from her, but she suddenly slams the table with her palms, stopping him. He looks back at her and her eyes burn with dark fire. 

“_ The Princess, _” she hisses, curling her fists. “What is your progress with the princess.” 

Kyo laughs like her anger is ridiculous, like he’s not terrified. “Oh, Akito,” he says sympathetically, laying a hand over one of her fisted ones, rubbing soothingly at her pale wrist. “Are you still upset over that?” 

Her eyes widen like he’s said something incredulous, but then something shutters across her features, cloaking her beauty in something as near to hideous as she can possibly get. Kyo’s heart near triples in its frantic pulse, his ichor running cold at her vehemence. 

She regards him slowly, her words a poison that choke the air. “Do you mean to tell me that you have made no progress?” 

His lips tighten and he attempts to pull back, but she digs her talons into his wrist, holding him back. “Akito-“ he starts. 

_ “Do you mean to tell me that the wretched whore still breathes!” _she screams, standing furiously out of her chair and slapping him hard across the face. Kyo’s face snaps to the side, his eyes wide, his cheek warm, and he looks back over at her, freezing at the look in her eyes, the sheer force of her hatred. 

_ “Do you mean to tell me that she’s still alive! Sullying my name with her wretched existence! I told you to kill her! I told you! I told you! I told you!” _she shrieks, eyes feral. 

He stands up slowly and holds his hands out passively in front of him, prepared to ward her off. “Akito, please listen to me.” 

She’s too manic to hear him, screaming wildly and pulling at the short, raven stands of her hair, her eyes closed tightly. 

Kyo rushes forward and takes her into his arms, enfolding her within his embrace tightly. He winces as she struggles, as she fights and scratches and punches at him, but he doesn’t let her go. He knows the consequences of letting go. 

She settles herself eventually, her sharp nails digging into his back, so different from the way Tohru did so only last night, and nestles herself against his chest, soaking in his comfort like a greedy child. 

“I hate her,” she whispers petulantly, her lips moving against his skin. “I hate her, I hate her, I hate her. I want her dead.” 

Kyo smooths down the mussed strands of her hair with a gentle palm and settles his hand near the nape of her neck, wanting to choke her dry, wanting to wring her pretty throat. The _ Khaos _ stalking within his chest screams at him to do it, to watch her face go blue with his hands halting her breath, to protect what’s his, but he resists the temptation. 

He doesn’t want it to end that easily.

“I’ll do it,” he promises, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll kill her. I swear it.”

Akito sobs into his chest and he holds her closer, disconnected entirely, lost in a sea of loathing. 

* * *

She shrieks when the world goes black once again. 

Tohru stumbles back, losing her footing from where she stood poised in front of the mirror, preparing to ready herself for bed. As she trips, she feels gentle hands steadying her. Familiar ones, now that she’s had the time to collect her thoughts. 

Suddenly giddy, she twirls around, throwing herself into her husband’s arms. 

“You’re back!” she gasps, wrapping him into a hug, and she smiles as she feels him pull her close. 

“I am, I am. What are you? An excitable puppy?” he laughs. He steps back, taking her hand into his own and leads her in the darkness. She sidles up closer to him, sliding her arm into the crook of his elbow, shuffling uncertainly after him. 

He turns around and she feels him place his hands on her shoulders, slowing pushing her down until she sat upon their bed. He quickly follows suit, taking her hand and holding it between two of his own. He brings it to his mouth and kisses her palm, causing her to flush prettily. 

“How has your day been, my love?” 

_ Boring _, she wants to say. Completely and utterly boring with only her own company to keep herself occupied. She explored more of the palace, marveled at the high ceilings and the seemingly never-ending library, but after she tired of that, she quickly grew bored once again. It didn’t take her long to realize that the voices would never provide her adequate companionship with as condescending as they proved to be. They seemed to regard her as little more than a simpering child; a precious doll to be kept and cared for as prize for their master. 

It made her uncomfortable. 

Nevertheless, she reaches out, cautiously placing a hand over the crook of his shoulder, caressing his skin lightly with her thumb. She leans forward and he gives her a quick kiss, her lips buzzing as she pulls away. 

“It’s been wonderful!” she says brightly, shifting closer. “I never imagined that a palace could be so beautiful.” 

Her husband laughs and kisses her again, near her jaw this time, and her heart picks up in response. “Truly?” he asks. “I was under the impression that you were raised a princess.”

Tohru smiles. “I was, but my family’s wealth was nowhere near as extensive as yours.” Suddenly a thought occurs to her. “How are you so rich anyway? Are you a prince of some sort? A king?” 

He laughs again, slyly this time, as if he was amused at something known only to him. “I suppose I could be considered one if you wished for me to be.” 

She blinks, moving away and looking up in his direction, her lips pursed. “‘Wished’? What does that-?” 

Her words break off into a squeal when her husband suddenly grips her waist and flips her over, his weight quickly settling over hers. His hands move over her own and entangle with her fingers, his hips shifting maddeningly against her own. 

“If you had to apply a title to me, I suppose you could call me a hunter.” 

“A hunter?” she breathes, her hips instinctively rising against his own, and she gasps as his hand slips from her own to slide up her thigh, his fingers tracing up her slit. 

“Yes, a hunter,” he says, voice deep and gravelly. “And a very good one too. Every man, woman, and child shivers in fear of my bow.” 

Tohru’s mind buzzes with questions left unanswered, with curiosities that eat at her in her idle moments, but her husband’s dizzying use of his hands steal the words from her throat and leave her unbearably shaky, breathless and pulsing. 

His fingers finally push into her and she moans, her lips blindly seeking his out in the darkness, her mind empty of everything not including him and his touch. 

He kisses her, and her questions fade from her mind. 

* * *

After, once they’ve both settled, happy and sated from their lovemaking, Tohru draped over his side, she decides to ask him questions again. 

“So, um.” 

“Yes?” he asks, bumping his nose against her forehead, his heart beating contentedly beneath their intertwined fingers. 

“The voices,” she starts, furrowing her brow. “The- the servants-?” 

“The servants, yes. What of them? Have they been giving you trouble?” he asks, a touch urgent, his tone on the very edge of angry, and she immediately shushes him, caressing his skin with her free hand to calm him. 

“Of course not!” she assures. “They’ve been very fine! If a bit, um-“ 

“Overbearing?” 

“Yes!” she says, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. The word she would’ve preferred to use was condescending, but it would have felt silly to complain that way in front of him when they did so much for her. 

His fingers card through her hair, lingering on her shoulders. “Yes, it is their nature to be. I've dealt enough with them to understand their… particularities,” he says, and Tohru may be imagining it, but she can almost hear the wince in his voice. It makes me her laugh. 

“They said something about you? About you being an important man.” 

“Are you asking if I am?” 

She settles further into his hard chest, feeling a bit shy now, not wanting to overwhelm him with the thousands of questions she has of him. “Yes,” she says, voice meek. 

His answering chuckle vibrates against her cheek. “I suppose you can say so.” 

She narrows her eyes, suspicion taking ahold of her once again. _ Why is it that he refused to answer her directly? _

“You are an insatiably curious creature aren’t you?” he asks, her hair shifting when he turns his chin to look down at her, presumably. _ I wouldn’t know if he did, _ she thinks, a touch bitter. She stays quiet. He jostles her, his fingers gently moving down her arm. 

“Something is bothering you, my heart. What is it?” 

Even annoyed, his easy affection for her causes her to blush, and she finds herself softening towards him, shifting just a bit closer. Even still, her suspicion wins out. 

“There is nothing,” she answers quietly. “There is nothing wrong.” 

“You’re lying.” 

Tohru looks up at him, brows furrowed, half-shocked that he could be so candid about calling her bluff. “I-“ she stammers. 

“You can tell me the truth,” he says, almost unnervingly serious. “I don’t think your upbringing might have given you many opportunities to be open about your feelings, but here it will be different. I will not have you wanting for anything, Tohru.”

_ What about your name? _ she thinks. _ Your past? Your face? What if I want those? _

Nevertheless, she settles down once again, curling her fingers over his heart, feeling it thrum against her skin. Despite everything, the affection still lingers there, warm and growing, and she presses a kiss against his hard pectoral. “Thank you,” she whispers. “I just want to know more about you.” 

He pulls her closer, and she feels his lips at her temple, his breaths puffing against her skin. “I know. I wish I could tell you more. I wish I could let you know all of it. I really do, but it’s not safe right now.” 

Her eyes narrow and she shifts up to ask him why it isn’t safe, why it wouldn’t be safe, but his lips capture her own for a moment, and she’s lost again in the blissful sensation that only he seems to inspire in her. 

When he leans away, he pulls her close until his forehead presses against her own, his words a whisper. “This is all that you can know for now, but I promise you. I promise you that one day it’ll all make sense.” 

She’s brought back to that moment yesterday, after that first time they made love, where she had no choice but to trust him; she has no choice still. She simply has to keep faith. 

She leans closer, their temples knocking together, soft hair brushing against her cheek. She wished she knew its color. 

“Okay,” she says, cupping his cheek. “I trust you.” 

Her husband kisses her, and she settles back down to lie on his chest, wanting, wanting, wanting. 

She seems to be made of it. 

* * *

In the weeks following, her husband proves to be remarkably attentive. 

As the voices suggested, her simple inquiry over the existence of a garden resulted over an actual garden being put in place, and Tohru finds herself ecstatic over the results. 

She never had a talent for gardening, or her mother’s natural affinity for the outdoors, but Tohru enjoyed beauty. She liked seeing how flowers took root, bloomed, and withered away all within the span of weeks only start the cycle again. It gave her some form of comfort to see life in so rudimentary a way. There was one discovery she made walking amongst the garden, however, that especially delighted her. 

“How did you know that I liked roses?” she asked her husband once he was with her again, and her husband laughed, nudging her forehead with a gentle fist. 

“A husband knows these things,” he said simply, and left it at that, opting for his usual crypticness. 

The memory makes her smile now, even as it sparks a tinge of frustration. 

Her vision goes black, and she knows her husband has returned. She holds out her arms automatically, knowing at this point that he preferred to be greeted this way. 

As expected, her husband sweeps her up into a hug, and Tohru allows herself to sink into his affection, her wreath of roses slipping from her fingers. Once he lets her go, he helps her settle onto the stone bench, one hand intertwined with her own.

“You’re home early today,” she says by way of greeting, and she feels him plant a kiss on her forehead, evidently pleased by her words.

“I am. Are you pleased?”

“Mightily!” she answers, squeezing his fingers and meaning it genuinely. Her husband, for all his faults, _ was _pleasant company. His conversation was enjoyable, his physical affection made her heart race, and even thinking of his lovemaking was enough to make her face hot. Tohru really, truly liked her husband. 

It must be because she has been with him long enough now, but Tohru can almost sense him smile at that, and she reaches out, tracing the shape of his lips with her fingers. Her husband sighs against them and grabs her hand, kissing her palm delicately, his gaze searing her, even in this perpetual darkness. 

Tohru blushes hotly and scrambles hastily to distract him. “H-How was hunting?”

His voice sounds shocked when he speaks, almost panicked. “What?”

Her brows furrow, and she nearly winces once she feels him grip her hand tighter. “How was hunting? You told me a few weeks ago that you were a hunter. Didn’t you?”

“I- Yes, yes, I did. It went very well, thank you.”

Her suspicion rears its ugly head again, but she stamps it down, annoyed at its frequency. “What do you hunt? You use a bow and arrow correct?” 

She can hear the smile in his voice again, can almost feel his posture relaxing against her side as he speaks. It makes her heart flutter to hear him so content, so sure of himself and passionate in this one hobby of his that she knows. 

“I hunt anything. I’m not very particular about it. It’s satisfying to do something you’re good at.” She feels him turn to her, his voice closer at her ear. “Have you ever shot before, Tohru?” 

She shakes her head, smiling sheepishly. “No, I was never allowed. My mother was a capable huntress, but it was deemed inappropriate for me to pursue it. I _ was _ able to watch my cousin learn, however! He wasn’t…” Tohru trails off, reluctant to sound uncharitable towards someone, wretched cousin or no. “He wasn’t very-”

“He was shit then?” her husband interrupts, and she whips up, staring up in his direction, vaguely scandalized. 

“I never said-!” she gasps, and her husband laughs, popping a kiss on her open lips, effectively silencing her. 

“You didn’t need to,” he says, and she can practically hear his grin. “It was in your voice. You really are too kind for your own good, you know that? Some might consider it a weakness.”

Tohru puffs out her cheeks at his teasing, glaring futilely in the darkness. She feels his hand at her cheek, squeezing it, and she looks up at him, suddenly feeling quite serious. She grabs his hand. 

“I don’t think kindness can be considered a weakness at all,” she says softly. “My mother used to say that kindness in the face of adversity is the greatest kind of strength there is.”

Her husband’s hand tightens around her own, his fingers sweeping across her cheek. 

“You’re quite right,” he says thickly. “I’m sorry.”

Tohru smiles gently and leans up to kiss the underside of his jaw, leaning into him, wordlessly waving away his apology. He sighs and holds her close. 

“Your mother sounds quite incredible. You must have loved her very much.”

“I still do,” Tohru whispers, and nestles into him, her ear pressed to his echoing heartbeat, feeling her own pulse slow to beat in sync with his own. 

* * *

“Do you think she is dead yet?” she asks, and glares up when she hears his groan sound above her. 

“Akito-” he begins wearily, but already she finds herself tired of his company and shoves him away, hefting the top of her gown over her breasts, turning away. 

“Akito.”

“What?” she bites back, still refusing to look, and she shakes off the hand that settles onto her shoulder. 

“Akito, it isn’t healthy for you to be so consumed by this. Kyo told you that he would handle it.”

She scoffs, slamming a palm down on a nearby table. “Please! That temperamental fool wouldn’t even know where to begin.” 

Shigure laughs like what she’s saying is ridiculous. “I would not underestimate him, my love. He’s clever when the occasion calls for it,” he says, smoothly sliding into a chair across from her. 

She finally looks back over at him, a brow quirked in suspicion. “Why would you say that? Do you know something that I don’t?” she asks, slowly standing up.

Shigure simply smiles at her genially, spreading his hands out in a wide, innocent gesture. She sidles closer, delicately laying a hand on his shoulder. 

“Do you know something?” she asks again, gently now, voice low, and she swallows when she feels his hand slip through the open slit of her gown, his fingers dancing up her thigh. 

“Shigure-” she gasps, and she feels him slide along her slit, thumb resting along her cunt, rubbing at her slowly. “Shigure-”

“Say please,” he commands gently, circling her clit harder. “Beg me if you really want to know.”

“Please!” she breathes, rocking into his motions, torn between her curiosity and the helplessness his touch inspires in her. “_ Please, please- _” 

He leans in close, lips brushing along her shoulder, dancing up the exposed swell of her breasts. “Well, the truth is-” He shifts up, his breath puffing out against her parted lips. “_ I. Don’t. Know _.”

Akito’s eyes shoot wide open to look down at him, her lust fading. “What? What did you say?”

He pulls his hand away, wiping her slick off his fingers with the fabric of his chiton, smiling slightly. “I don’t know anything. Kyo and I don’t speak.” He looks away, his gaze considering. “Really it surprises me. I thought you would have kept track of the doings of your lovers, old and new.”

A wave of hot rage rushes through her, painting her vision a hellish red, and her hand flies out, striking him across the face. Shigure’s face snaps to the side with the force of her slap, but his smile remains unaffected, his eyes still vaguely cold. 

_ She hates him. She hates him. She hates him. She- _

“Get out,” she spits viciously, quietly, her whole body shaking with the urge to hit him again. 

Shigure just sighs, looking off to the side. “Oh come off it. I was just teasing.”

“Get out!” she says louder, pushing away from him and turning away. She hears him approach her and she spins around, her nails drawn to claw at him, but his hand flies out lightning-quick to catch her, stopping her before she can. “Akito, I was serious about your obsession with this girl. Your preoccupation with her is not healthy. You will drive yourself mad over nothing.”

“Nothing?!” she gasps, snatching her hand away. _ “Nothing?!” _

“Yes!”

“You don’t understand! You never will! Not you or Kyo or anyone! None of you will understand!” she screams, grabbing at her face, shaking her head frantically. “This girl will ruin _ everything _!”

Shigure groans, pinching the bridge of his nose and looking away from her, like she was annoying him, like— like she was disgusting him. The thought nearly brings her to tears. 

“The girl is human. She cannot ruin anything. She is _ nothing _.”

Akito sneers. “Proves how little you know. Among her people, she has made her own little cult, replacing me, disregarding me. This cannot go unpunished. You know how we treat blasphemy here, Shigure. I am simply following divine law.”

He stares at her very seriously, his gaze hard, unforgiving; his usual expression before he said something cruel. She almost cringes to see it. 

“This isn’t you punishing blasphemy, you foolish girl. This is jealousy. You are jealous, and you know it.” His eyes are soft now, nearly pitying. “And it eats at you. It’s consuming you whole.”

A vase shatters on the wall by his head, and he turns to see her picking up another one, her eyes wild. 

_ “Get out! Get out! Get out! GET OUT-!” _

The door echoes as it slams shut behind him, and she falls to the floor, weeping bitterly as her knees bite into the jagged pieces of porcelain. She pays it no mind. 

It’s not her fault anyway. 

* * *

“Kyo!” 

He turns around to see Shigure jogging towards him, his stance relaxed but his eyes a touch frantic. He straightens up immediately, his fingers itching towards his dagger. 

“What is it?” 

“Are you going to see Akito?” 

Kyo scoffs, sneering at the other man. “Not if I can help it. Why? Are you wondering if she’s too busy to _ entertain _ you?” 

Shigure’s eyes narrow just a fraction, his expression shuttering into something vaguely serious. This only heighten Kyo’s wariness. 

“I wouldn’t take up such a tone with someone so willing to help you.” 

He clenches his jaw, panic flaring in his heart. “What do you mean?” 

Shigure looks at him very seriously, his mouth set into a tight, thin line. He places a hand on his shoulder. 

“Kyo, I _ know _.” 

His mind goes blank, panic overwhelming his thoughts. He can feel the strain of his widening eyes and the slight pain of his nails digging into the flesh of his palms. 

He knows. What did that mean? What else could it have meant, if not for the obvious. 

His thoughts turn towards Tohru, lying in their bed just this morning, sleeping like a child, innocent and safe and _ his _. If he knew then what did that mean for her? For them? Shigure was basically Akito’s lapdog; he would do almost anything under the sun if she simply commanded it, and with her grudge against her...

He can feel his anger rising to meet the panic, a primordial bloodlust roaring inside of him, demanding to be released. His eyes burn to the point of pain, and he knows that they must be flashing that awful, isolating gold that he’s learned to suppress.

He doesn’t care. 

He grabs Shigure by the front of his toga and drags him into a nearby room, slamming him hard against the door, his fingers wrapped around his throat. His hand flies to his hip and he flips the hilt of his dagger, holding it to the underside of his chin. 

Shigure’s eyes are wide, his hands grasping frantically at Kyo’s wrist, his lips moving with strain. He cannot hear the words though, with the blood rushing through his ears. 

“What. The. _ Fuck _. Do. You. Mean?” he growls, digging the dagger in just a bit more, deep enough to cut, to watch the golden, divine ichor inch it’s way slowly down the blade. 

“_ K-Kyo- _“ 

“_ Answer me!” _

“L-Let me g-go and I’ll answer!” 

With a snarl, he tosses him down, watching with barely restrained fury as he catches his breath. 

He looks back up, his eyes watery, but his expression annoyingly, frustratingly calm. 

Kyo hated him. He fucking hated him. Shigure was the one god entirely unafraid of him. It made their interactions obnoxious and hard to escape. 

Once he was sufficiently recovered, he tried to speak again. “Kyo-“

“_ How _ do you know?” he growls, eyes narrowed dangerously. “Are you watching me for that _ witch _?” 

Shigure’s expression turns hard, and he stands up slowly, calmly dusting himself off. 

“Careful, _ boy _. I would not get on my bad side right now if I were you.” 

Kyo’s eyes widen, rage practically steaming from his ears, but Shigure speaks again. 

“You forget that I spend so much time with the humans. You forget how much they talk, how much they enjoy rumor.” He smirks, looking all too victorious, too in control, for someone so seemingly eager for death. “And I have heard ample rumor.” 

Kyo crosses his arms, dagger still clenched tightly in hand. “What do you mean?” 

“Have you heard of a young princess recently? The most beautiful girl in all of Greece apparently, far more beautiful than Aphrodite. She was married to a monster, you see, a god on the mountain, carried away and never to be seen again. Have you heard of her?” 

He swallows, refusing to break eye contact. 

“I think you have, Kyo,” he says softly, looking all at once sad and satisfied. “I think you know this girl very well. She’s such a beautiful girl too. I can see why you coveted her so much.” 

Kyo feels his jaw clench, the fire in his eyes subsiding, defeat finally settling in. He grips the blade tighter. 

“I won’t let you hurt her,” he says lowly, glaring at him mutinously. “I will _ kill you _ before I let you touch her.” 

Shigure tilts his head, his gaze pitying. 

“I have nothing against this mortal girl, Kyo. She is innocent.” 

“She is,” he affirms. “She doesn’t know anything.” 

“Good,” he says. “It’s better that she doesn’t. It keeps her safer.” 

Kyo spares him a considering look, finally relaxing his stance. 

“Why are you helping me? Why do you care?” 

Shigure’s eyes travel somewhere over his shoulder, his gaze distant and unnervingly sympathetic. 

“In all honesty, I don’t care. I care very little for you and I know next to nothing about this young princess of yours, but I cannot begrudge you your choice, Kyo. I know how it must’ve felt like seeing her that first time.” 

“Like walking into a dream,” he interjects softly, without meaning to. 

Shigure smiles at him, bittersweet and sad, eyes full of longing. 

“I know just as well that we can’t help who we fall in love with, Kyo. I cannot hold that against you,” he says. 

The two men look at each other for a long moment, a first, true feeling of connection and understanding passing between them. Kyo glances away, sheathes his dagger, and the moment is broken. 

* * *

“Excuse me,” Tohru calls to the air, body warm under the sun, her fingers weaving a daisy chain. “Do you know where my husband is?” 

_ You know the answer to that, child. _

She does. 

“I know,” she answers, and turns her attention back to the daisy chain, weaving, weaving, weaving, petals falling onto her stomach. 

She sings a song her mother sang to her when she was young, a song of woebegone, aching loneliness and loss of love. Something that ate at the heart and turned the blood warm with wanting. 

It’s been three days. 

“_ La-la-la-la- _“ she sang, voice soft and lilting, slow and delicate. 

“_ La-la-la-la-la- _“ 

She weaves another loop, nimble fingers moving quickly. Her shoulders are warm against the grass, her dress drawn up high and her thighs exposed to the slightly chilly autumn breeze. _ Winter is coming soon, _ she muses, idle mind drawn to the weather. 

It’s funny. She never seemed to notice the weather before. 

She finishes the chain, laying it down over her stomach, lacing her fingers together. 

A butterfly floats past and she watches it, entirely expressionless, feeling no joy or awe at the sight of it. 

Her husband has been gone for three days. 

* * *

When her world goes dark again, it takes her a few moments to understand why. 

Her husband is back. It had been two weeks. 

Tohru purses her lips hard, sinking even further into the lukewarm water of the tub. It was pick black, and even then, she still refused to entertain the possibility of even _ sensing _ him. And yet- 

And yet. 

She feels his hand glide up her slick, naked shoulder, his touch as electrifying as it ever was, as wonderful and as awful, doing horrible things to her heart. 

He hasn’t even spoken and she already wants to cry. 

“Tohru,” she hears him murmur, feels his nose brushing up her jawline, _ hurting _ her. “Tohru.”

She whimpers and turns away from him, overwhelmed. 

His voice is thick now, all at once heartbroken and relieved, and it twists something inside of her. “Please don’t block me out. I’m _ sorry _.” 

She bites her lip to stifle the sob that builds in her throat, but it escapes anyway, exposing her and her vulnerability. 

Her husband surges forward and takes her into his arms, holding her against his chest tightly, his nose buried into her shoulder, his lips all at once kissing up her throat and whispering apologies into her skin. 

His affection, his touch, something that Tohru had longed for for weeks, finally breaks the dam, and tears cascade down her already wet cheeks. She turns in her husband’s arms and hugs him tightly, taking him in, burying her fingers into his soft hair. 

“I was so scared!” she cries, gripping onto the fabric of his toga with trembling fingers, shaking from the force of her sobs. “I thought I would be left all alone!” 

Her husband coos and shushes at her, his lips fluttering up and down and across her face, over her cheeks and lips and eyelids. He doesn’t say anything beyond apologies, and it offers her no relief. 

She pushes against him now, suddenly angry, but his arms are ironclad around her, nearly painful in his desperation to keep her close. 

“I thought that you left me,” she whispers hoarsely, shoving feebly at him. “The voices wouldn’t tell me anything and I was all alone. I didn’t speak to a single soul for weeks. I cannot do that. I _ cannot- _“ 

Her voice fades into another sob, and she clamps her hand over her mouth, ashamed now by her obvious weakness and dependency. Her mother would never do this; would never present herself thus. She was _ pathetic _. She would only make her husband hate her at this rate.

She bites her lip hard and attempts to curl in on herself as much as his arms allowed, wanting to get away from him, wanting to have him avoid looking at her apparent vulnerability. 

“I’m so sorry,” she gasps. “I have troubled you. Please don’t-“ 

Her husband’s lips press hard onto hers, silencing her, and Tohru melts into his embrace automatically, reveling in the sensation after going so long without it. 

When he pulls away, he drops a kiss onto her nose, and she’s shocked to find that his face feels slightly wet as she caresses it: evidence of his own tears. 

It almost makes her want to cry again. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers thickly. “I’m so sorry. I had to be away and I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone. I’m sorry.” 

She buries her face into his neck, feeling strangely numb now, overwhelmed and weary of the rampant emotion that stormed through her. His apology only heightens it. 

“I’m tired,” she says softly, voice thin and reedy, like a child. 

He presses a hard kiss to her forehead. “I know. I know, but I promise, Tohru, I promise that it’ll all make sense one day. We won’t live like this forever. I won’t allow it. You simply have to trust me.” 

_ Trust him _. 

She doesn’t know if that makes her feel better or worse. 

* * *

“You called me here.” 

She looks over at him, seated at her vanity like a queen perched on a throne. It truly is amazing that even though he stands above her, she still manages to squint down her nose at him. 

He clenches his fists. 

She glances at his hands, her full lips twisting into a smirk. “Upset already, Kyo?” 

He smiles wanly at her, crossing his arms defensively. “You seem to inspire that reaction in me, _ my lady, _” he sneers. “Congratulations.” 

Her placid expression sours into a glare, and she crosses her arms as well, mirroring him. “Well good then,” she snaps. “At least then you can accomplish _ something _!” 

His jaw clenches. “What do you mean?” 

“You know exactly what I mean, you wretch!” she spits venomously. “I have had enough of your incompetence and pathetic attempts at stalling. Has that insipid whore burrowed herself into your heart too?” she sneers, and Kyo fights to keep his expression blank, vaguely incredulous even. 

“_ What _?” 

Akito’s anger suddenly drops from her face, and she turns to her mirror, meeting his gaze through the reflection, looking prim and proper and disgustingly satisfied. 

He fights the urge to fidget. 

“I have enlisted someone else to kill that girl for me. I no longer require your aid, _ helpful _ though you may be,” she drawls, her voice dripping with sarcasm. 

Kyo bites back his reflexive anger at her condescension, and focuses on the first part of her statement, the cold dredge of fear rushing through him. 

“What do you mean you’ve ‘enlisted someone’? What about the humiliation? Only I can do that for you.” 

Akito whips around, glaring at him furiously, her hand mirror gripped dangerously in her small, destructive hands. “The time for humiliation is gone now! I wanted her dead and so she shall be dead!” 

“_ No _!” 

The word is ripped out of him, desperate and tortured, echoing in the vast chamber, and he would’ve cringed at the sheer panic in his voice if he had any inclination to cringe in front of her in the first place. 

Her face falls blank, her lips parting in shock. “No?”

He scrambles, trying to recover his misstep. “Don’t ask someone else! I can do it myself! Do you have any idea what this would do to me? I would be a laughingstock.” 

She shifts slowly in her seat, trapping him with her suspicious gaze. He almost feels like a human man before her, helpless and desperate. 

“You don’t care for your reputation, Kyo. You never have. Don’t tell that you’ve-“ She interrupts herself, laughing cruelly. “Don’t tell that you’ve gone soft for this girl? She is practically a _ child.” _

Kyo’s mouth tightens, and he walks forward, grabbing her hands and kneeling in front of her, hating every moment of it. 

“She is nothing to me, Akito. She is human, and you know what little regard I have for humans. I told you from the beginning that this request of yours would take time, but believe me when I say that I am working diligently to have it done.” He tilts his head, staring up at her earnestly. “When have I ever failed you before?” he asks, squeezing her fingers, wanting to crushing them in his grip. 

Her face is still hard, but her eyes have lost that wretched gleam of suspicion. The vice around his heart relaxes. 

“I expect to have it done before the next full moon.”

He barely holds back his sigh of relief. “Of course.” 

“And I want proof of the deed.” 

He nods once. “Of course.” 

“Wonderful.” She yanks her hands from his grip and turns away, and Kyo stands up, wiping his fingers on his toga, erasing the lingering sensation of her touch. 

He concludes from her silence that their meeting is done, and turns to walk towards the door. When he reaches the end of her chambers, his hand on the knob, she calls his name. 

He turns to see her looking at him through the mirror, her eyes bright and teeming with slick satisfaction. He tenses again. 

“Kyo, just because we have come to an understanding does not mean that I am calling off the aid that I have already requested.”

He gapes, turning back around. 

“You are moving too slow,” she simpers, smirking at him. “And I want that whore’s heart in a box to keep.” 

* * *

He bursts into their bedroom, chest heaving wildly and eyes scanning the room wildly when he sees her, sitting calmly on their bed, putting down the scroll she was reading. He nearly weeps at the sight of her. 

“Husband?” 

Her voice stirs him into action. 

He rushes towards her, heaving her off the bed, and crushing her lips to his. He feels her gasp into his mouth, her hands automatically flying to his hair to bury her fingers inside. 

He wrenches himself away and licks down her jawline, something inside him purring at her resulting moans and sighs. She grabs desperately at his toga, trying to pull it over his head, and he growls, pushing her down onto the bed. 

He tugs the insipid garment over his head, and crawls over her, shoving her skirt over her hips. 

He nestles himself into the cradle of her thighs, groaning at how wet she felt against him already; if he were a lesser man, he might’ve pushed into her then, damn the consequences. 

“Hu-Husband,” she breathes, arching into his touch as he grasps her breasts over the thin fabric of her gown. He moves his fingers hurriedly over her nipples, grabbing the peaks and pinching them, and he groans loudly when he feels her cant her hips against him, his cock nestling between her slit. 

He grabs the front of her gown and rips it savagely down the middle, watching with vague amusement as her cheeks color scarlet, her hands rising to cup her breasts, to shield them from his gaze. 

Beneath the lust, confusion shines brightly in her eyes, and she opens her mouth to question him, but Kyo has no sense for conversation right now. He thrusts shallowly against her, covering her body with his own and intertwining their fingers. He leans down and swallow her sighs from parted lips, his tongue curling against hers. She shifts up against him, her hips slowly grinding against him, stealing her pleasure, and he has to physically stop himself from thrusting inside her. 

He moves his lips to her throat, kissing and licking soft, sensitive skin. “Please,” he breathes, moving his hand to rub slow circles around her clit. “Please. I need you.” 

Something choked and broken escape her lips, a bitten off moan, and she grinds frantically against his fingers, her nails digging into his shoulder. 

“_ Please- _“

“Gods, Tohru,” he groans, slipping his fingers inside, thrusting into her slowly, his thumb still circling her clit. 

She grasps at his back, wrapping her legs around his hips and wiggling around, trying frantically to find her pleasure. He sees her approaching it, watches as her breasts heave and feels her legs clench tighter around him, trying to keep him close, but just before she can, he slips his fingers out of her. She groans in disappointment, but Kyo finds her lips and kisses her hard, his hands flying everywhere up her body, touching as much as he can. 

He reaches down and grabs himself, aligning himself with her entrance. He feels Tohru’s heels press into his back, urging him closer, and he pushes all the way inside, growling into her neck at the feel of her around him. 

He intertwines their hands once again and thrusts into her, their chests pressed flat against each other. 

With his every movement, he hears her little sighs, her choked off whimpers and moans, and he wants to hear more of it, wants to die with the sound of her pleasure on his lips.

He leans back and grabs hard at her hips, looking down at her flushed face and tightly shut eyes, and fucks into her with abandon. 

_ This _ , he thinks wildly, tracing his fingers up her stomach. _ This, Akito cannot take from me. _

He leans down and kisses her once again, swallowing her moans, lifting her hips and making her grind against him. He buries his nose in her silken brown hair, traces her supple skin with callused fingers, and knows that nothing will ever ruin this for him. He would rather _ die _ before allowing anything to hurt her; he would kill anything that would keep them from each other. 

He shifts back and watches as her pleasure consumes her, as her mouth opens in a silent scream and her eyes clench tightly shut. He buries his face into her neck and kisses her delicately there, coming inside her with one last thrust, holding her close. 

Once they both settle, he rolls away from her and pulls her into his side, nestling his nose into her sweet smelling hair; he wonders if she bathed in rose oil today or lavender. She had a fondness for both. 

They spend several minutes just reveling in the afterglow: Tohru’s slight, soft fingers gliding up his chest, and his palm rubbing slowly along her slim waist. It was these moments that he savored the most. 

Tohru, as always, is the first to break the silence. 

“You came home in a particular mood today,” she muses, circling a finger over his heart, and she giggles as he nuzzles obnoxiously into her hair. 

“Can you blame me? You are a remarkably irresistible creature,” he whispers flirtatiously, and he basks in the glow of her bashful smile. 

She truly did get embarrassed at the strangest things. 

“I- I was wondering something actually,” she says quietly, and he turns towards her, urging her to go on. 

She lays more squarely on top of him and looks into the general direction of where she must suppose his face would be. He runs a finger down her cheek to orient her. 

“I was wondering if, perhaps, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, of course-“ 

“Tohru,” he interrupts firmly, and she nods hastily, understanding his silent reprimand. 

“Perhaps I could invite my grandfather?” she asks sheepishly, and Kyo already tenses beneath her. “Or- or even my cousins-“ 

“Tohru,” he sighs, sitting up, but she hangs onto him tightly, keeping herself pressed against him, her eyes wide. “Please, only my cousins then! It shouldn’t be any trouble!” 

“Tohru, you know that I cannot allow that.” 

She cringes, disappointment settling into her features, but her natural determination must still seem to spur her on. “I promise I will keep anyone from knowing too much but please, if only I could just-“ 

Kyo pulls away from her and grabs her by the shoulders, staring squarely into her face. “_ I said no _!” he snaps, shaking her slightly. 

She stares at him, shocked, her eyes rapidly filling with tears, and immediately he hates himself, loathes himself so deeply that it makes his heart ache. 

He moves his hand from her shoulder to cup her cheek, but she turns away from him, hiding her face behind a curtain of long hair. 

“Tohru-“ 

“Don’t,” she whispers hoarsely. “Do not touch me please.” 

His heart lurches, but he pulls back immediately. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” 

She turns furious, watery eyes on him and shocks him into stillness; he had never seen her lovely face so contorted by anger before, had never seen how simply the weight of her gaze could make him feel less than a god, less than a man. 

“I am not upset that you yelled at me,” she begins quietly. “I am simply realizing that I am not your wife, but your _ prisoner _.” 

Kyo gapes at her, an indignant anger building in his gut. “Prisoner? How _ dare _ you-“ 

She lurches forward, her eyes spitting with anger, and even hurt and upset as he is, Kyo can’t help but notice how breathtaking she still looked. 

“How dare I? How dare _ you _? You claim to love me! To cherish me! You’ve promised to keep me happy! And yet with every opportunity you have, you keep me here! I cannot go outside, I cannot make friends, I cannot even have someone to speak to!” She laughs bitterly, bordering on a sob. “Sometimes I feel as if I am going insane!” 

He clenches his jaw hard, breathing deeply, forcing himself to remember that she simply did not understand, that her situation as of now was temporary, that she only needed to be reassured. 

“Tohru,” he begins again, calmly, and she shakes her head firmly, moving away from his reaching fingers. 

“Do _ not _ ask me to trust you again. I swear if I hear you say it one more time, I shall scream!” 

Kyo’s already fragile patience rapidly wears thin, and he finds himself just as incensed. 

“What do you want me to say then!” 

“I want you to tell me the truth!” she screams. “I want you to tell me what is truly going on! I cannot be left in the dark anymore!” 

Kyo surges forward and grabs her shoulders, forcing himself close. “I can’t tell you what’s happening! It’s not safe!” 

“Why is it not safe! What is wrong?!” she yells, trying to push away from him, but he keeps his grip firm. 

“I can’t-!” 

“You can't tell me. Of course,” she mutters bitterly. “How _ novel _,” she spits, and finally wrenches herself from him, turning away and burrowing into her side of the bed. 

Kyo looks down at her before settling down beside her, pulling her stiff body into his arms. When she does not fall pliant or curl into him as she usually does, he holds her even tighter, trying to force the weight of his emotion into his embrace. 

“I’m sorry that you are not happy,” he whispers, his words muffled into her hair. “But please, at least tell me that you love me. At least let me know that all of this has not been in vain.” 

She stays silent for a long, agonizing moment, and Kyo’s heart races with the heaviness of the silence, with the uncertainty of it. 

It seems so peculiar now, how he is the god, and yet she holds his fate in her tiny, fragile human hands. 

“I do not know,” she whispers back tonelessly. “I do not know if I can. I do not even _ know _ you.” 

There was a moment in the very beginning of time, of his birth, that Kyo remembers the most clearly. It was a strange experience; he was nonexistent and then he was born, conceived from the vast, sterile blankness of _ Khaos _. He remembers the confusion he felt, the complete and total sense of loss because he had no one to guide him, no one to explain what was happening or who he was. It was the first and only time he ever felt like something small and insignificant, like a human, like a child. 

Somehow, this makes him feel worse. 

He mechanically removes himself from around her, his heart twisting and his organs lurching and his eyes burning, but feeling totally and completely numb. Lost and without guidance, like the Eros he was eons and eons ago. 

He walks out to their balcony and unfurls his wings, flapping them and shooting off into the air and towards Olympus. 

Only when he reaches his chambers, does he allow the tears to fall. 

* * *

For the duration of the next week, Tohru spends it weeping bitterly into her pillows and remaining a fixture in their bed. 

She doesn’t know what came over in that moment; she was just so _ angry _, so tired of his secrecy and his stark refusal to be honest with her. She had tried to be happy with him, to find something worth looking forward to every day and she just couldn’t. 

She was just so alone all the time. The voices were poor company, and her husband served as her only means of human interaction. She found herself soaking up his attention and his companionship because she was just so hungry for it, for _ something _that wasn’t simply herself and her own thoughts. 

But still, even then she really- 

She really, truly- 

There was something in the way he touched her sometimes; during lovemaking or even simply when he was holding her hand or caressing her cheek. Her heart would slow and she would feel contentment pouring in through every inch of her, suffusing her with a deep calm and utter peace, drugging her senses. She had never felt that before. Nothing ever made her feel that way. Nothing but him. 

And now it was- 

Tohru sobs into her sheets, shaking fitfully, unable to even bare thinking it. She drove him away with her cruelty, and it was no one’s fault but her own. She was supremely horrified with herself, with her lack of regard towards his emotions and his efforts to make her happy, his genuine affection for her. 

She was an insipid, vapid, horrible creature who deserved his hatred. She deserved to be left on her own and abandoned. 

She had no idea that she could be so _ cruel! _

“Tohru.” 

For a moment, she thinks that she’s imagining his voice, his unique, gentle baritone, and the hint of gruffness it bore towards almost everything but never her.

“Tohru.” 

This time she lifts her head from the pillow and opens her eyes to find herself completely sightless, and her heart jumps with the realization that he’s really there.

She gasps loudly and twists around, throwing herself onto her knees and crawling rapidly towards the end of the bed. 

She finds him after blindly reaching for him, his body stiff and unmoving, and it makes Tohru _ ache _ to feel him so physically removed from her, so unaffectionate when before he seemed to shower her in it unabashedly. 

Her hands find his cheeks and she pulls him close, showering kisses across his eyelids and his lips and his cheeks. She can feel him melting into her, his hard body relaxing beneath her gentle touch, and within moments, he sweeps her into his arms, burying his face into the crook of her neck. 

Tohru cries as he holds her, whispering apologies into his skin, wanting them to sink in and wrap around his heart; to soothe the barbs she so cruelly placed there. 

Her husband pulls back and tugs her into a firm kiss, his lips melding into hers, and she sighs against him, letting herself sink into the sensation his kisses inspire in her. 

He leans back and peppers kisses across her forehead, and Tohru clings to the front of his tunic, burrowing herself against him. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers into his chest. “I’m a terrible wife. I hurt you for _ no reason _and I-“ 

“No, no,” he interrupts, sounding just as remorseful. “I have been neglecting you. I forgot that humans had different needs and I had been callous with your emotions. I showered you in material possessions and sweet words and expected love in return. I was wrong.”

Tohru doesn’t answer him, doesn’t want to tell him that he was right. She simply cuddles into him more. 

“I was especially wrong for trying to hide you from your family.” 

She looks up at him abruptly, a brief shot of hope flaring in her heart, and she grasps tighter at his tunic. “Are you saying that-?” 

“I invited your family to visit you,” he says, and Tohru nearly shakes in excitement. “Your aunt and your cousin specifically. Your grandfather was deemed too ill.” 

Tohru’s heart squeezes at the mention of her grandfather, but the news sets her mind alight with happiness. 

Yes, her cousins and her aunt could be… particular, but they were family, they were people from the outside world, they were people from _ home _. 

She jumps up and plants a kiss squarely on his lips, and she laughs giddily as she feels him smile against her. 

“Thank you,” she whispers as she presses kisses against his chin, his jaw, the slope of his neck. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

Her husband leans back from her searching lips and sweeps a hand down the length of her hair. 

“I am happy that you are happy, but I must leave now. They will be here soon, and I cannot be here when they do.” 

Tohru deflates a bit, the subtle hope of being able to introduce him to her family dying down, but even still, her happiness at seeing other people remains largely unaffected. She nods at him. 

He presses a quick kiss to her lips. “I will be back tonight and you can tell me about the visit then. Simply call my name and I shall be there.” 

She nods, but her husband speaks again. 

“And remember, Tohru, you must tell them _ nothing _ of this house. They will poison you against me if you do.” 

She furrows her brows, a touch confused. “Poison? How-?”

“I have to go. They’ve arrived.”

Tohru hears a swish of something, a gust of wind, and then nothing. Her sight returns to her and she looks around, finding a new gown on the bed and a rose above it, a single lamp by their bedside. 

She smiles at it, grabbing the flower, but the sound of two familiar voices shock her into place. 

“Tohru!” 

* * *

“Oh, darling!” her aunt calls loudly, grandly sweeping two kisses across her cheeks. “How I’ve missed you!” 

Tohru smiles, dutifully receiving her aunt’s affection. “Yes, it’s very wonderful to see you.”

“Isn’t it?” she answers, smiling in return, and she directs a look towards her daughter, occupied with studying the figures painted on the walls. “Dear? Why don’t you greet your cousin?” 

Her cousin looks away from the mural and directs her gaze towards Tohru, her eyes shining with an emotion that she can’t decipher. 

“Cousin,” she says, walking and planting two quick kisses on Tohru’s cheeks. “Your house is just lovely, criminally so.” 

Her smile widens at the compliment, and she feels a happy flush spread across her cheeks. “Yes, thank you! My husband designed it, I think.” 

Her aunt grins and grabs Tohru’s shoulder to snatch her attention. 

“Yes, my dear! What manner of prince is your husband exactly, to be so fabulously wealthy?” she asks, taking her hand and leading her to a table. 

Tohru’s domestic training kicks in, and she removes herself from her aunt’s grip to pull out a chair for both her and her cousin, only sitting down once they had cups and small plates in front of them. 

“My husband is not a prince, actually,” Tohru explains, watching with some mild amusement as her aunt and cousin gape at the invisible hands that pour their refreshments. “He is a hunter.” 

“A hunter?” her cousin asks, looking at her with some affront. “Do you expect us to be so simple to believe that a mere hunter could afford such an opulent house?” She pointedly eyes her cup. “A _ magical _, opulent house?” 

Tohru smiles sheepishly, shrugging slightly. She fights down the urge to wring her fingers. “He is a hunter. That is what he told me and I did not see it fit to question him.” 

Her cousin huffs but remains silent. Her aunt sips at her tea, her eyes fixed upon Tohru’s face. 

“What is you husband’s name, my dear?” 

She jolts, her gaze darting to her aunt. “His name?” 

She lowers the tea cup, her smile relaxed and her eyes hard. “Yes, dear, his name.” 

Tohru laughs a bit loudly, a bit uncomfortably, wringing her fingers now. She searches frantically for a name to apply to him, for any name that she can happen to remember, and she blurts out the first one that comes to mind. 

“Achilles!” 

Her aunt and cousin spare her suspicious and query looks. 

“Achilles?” her cousin asks with some doubt. “Like the hero Achilles?”

Tohru smiles widely, attempting to feign nonchalance, getting the sick feeling that she wasn’t doing a very apt job. “Yes! It’s very funny, isn’t it? His father was a fan of the story.” 

Her aunt laughs genially, standing up from her seat and directing a pleasant smile towards her niece. 

“Come, Tohru. Why don’t you give us a tour of your lovely home?” 

* * *

The questions do not stop there. 

They ask her many things, like how her husband looked and his hobbies and his family lineage, and Tohru had an answer for every one, finding that lies came easier to her under pressure. 

His hair was brown of course, like hers, the color of earth. His eyes were a sharp, dazzling green, like cut emeralds: her aunt’s favorite jewel. 

His hobbies were hunting. He was an extremely able hunter. He brought home the meat of several different strange animals, but was respectful towards nature, and compassionate when he needed to be. 

His family lineage was old; older than their own. He was the son of a line of kings, but the bloodline was so far removed that the names became muddled and lost to the passage of time. 

She smiled sheepishly for that one, explaining that her husband was often so busy that he couldn’t remember trivial things like that. 

She was in the middle of explaining another true story that she came up with herself, when her aunt abruptly grabbed her hand, her gaze hard and lips thin.

“Tohru,” she says firmly. “You can stop now. We know that you are lying.” 

Tohru’s heart sinks down to her stomach, her face flushing wildly at being found out, but she yanks herself away from her aunt’s grip. 

“Lying,” she gasps, trying to sound offended. “How can you say that? Why would I-?” 

“Tohru, do not offend my intelligence,” her aunt interrupts coldly. “I remember that soldier you were infatuated with as a child: Alexios, do you remember him? He had brown hair and green eyes too. And Achilles? Please, my dear, could you have chosen a more obvious name? _ Achilles!” _She laughs. 

“We’re not fools,” her cousin interjects, crossing her arms, glaring mutinously at her. “And you have always been a rotten liar.” 

Tohru blinks back the tears that cloud her vision, her hand fisted at her throat. “I-“

Her aunt clucks her tongue, shaking her head with pity. 

“Poor girl. You are so ashamed at being wed to a monster that you find yourself compelled to lie. It truly is tragic.” 

Tohru narrows her eyes, her heart jumping in offense. “How dare you!” she snaps, gesturing to herself. “My husband is not a monster!” 

“Isn’t he?” her cousin replies, laughing cruelly, and Tohru throws a scathing glance her way. “Why else wouldn’t you know his name? His family? His face? He’s obviously hiding something from you.” 

She physically feels herself deflate, her mind racing, her stomach sinking. She takes a step back, her eyes at her feet, but her aunt’s hands fall on her shoulder, and Tohru looks up to see her gazing down at her fiercely. 

“Tohru, you mustn’t let this defeat you. I understand why you would lie to us. You were simply protecting yourself.” She directs a sympathetic look down at her belly and rests a gentle hand over it, staring at her with shiny eyes. “And the baby, of course.”

Tohru feels the world fall out from beneath her feet, feels the earth tilt on its axis, dousing her in a heart-shattering shock. By the time she comes to, she finds herself weeping into her aunt’s bony shoulder. 

“Shh, my dear,” she coos, rubbing at her back gently. “Shh, I know, I know.” 

“B-But how?” Tohru blubbers, wiping furiously at her eyes. “_ How _?” 

“Well you’re intimate with him, aren’t you?” her cousin asks callously, studying the golden sconces on the walls. Her aunt looks at her expectantly and Tohru blushes, nodding slowly. 

“When is the last time you’ve had your menses?” she asks, and Tohru thinks on it deeply, horrified when she can’t come up with an answer. She shakes her head, burying her face into her hands. 

“I don’t remember,” she says weakly. “I can’t remember.” She looks up at her aunt. “But how did you know when I didn’t?” 

“A mother knows these things, dear. The changes have already set in-“ Her aunt gestures to her breasts- “I noticed as soon as I saw you.” 

“Oh,” she replies, blushing deeply. 

“You cannot lose hope, my dear,” her aunt continues, ignoring her embarrassment. She snaps her fingers and her cousin comes rushing to her side, digging through her aunt’s travel bag and sliding an object across the floor to them. 

Tohru’s heart sinks when she realizes what it is. 

A dagger. 

She looks up at her aunt, horrified and shaking, but her aunt simply places a hand onto Tohru’s stomach, her gaze long and sympathetic. 

“For the baby,” she whispers, and Tohru closes her hand over her aunt’s. 

* * *

Hours after the visit, once Tohru had time to sufficiently recover from her shock, she calls on her husband. 

He made love to her avidly that night, touching and kissing every inch of her that he could, clearly making up for the week he spent absent from her side. 

Tohru returns his attentions just as much, driven by the need to hold him close, finding that even with her suspicions, she missed him fiercely. It was only after they were done, that she cringed to herself, ashamed at her voracity for someone who would lie to her so; for a _ monster _. 

A monster. 

She doesn’t know when along the way she stopped believing that it was true. 

She waits until he was fast asleep, his chest slowly moving up and down with his deep, snuffling breaths, before she decides to move. 

She grabs the lamp from her bedside table and the dagger from beneath the bed, clenching both objects tightly in her shaking fists. 

She tiptoes over to his side of the bed, kneeling down before him with her eyes shut and her heart pounding, nervous out of her mind, and yet so, so hopeful that was what she believed wasn’t true. 

She opens her eyes and gasps softly, feeling wonder spread throughout her body. 

Her husband’s back was broad and muscular, his skin bronze, dark from time spent in the sun. His hair was a bright orange, messy, and soft looking: the color of the sunset. Her mind churns over itself, wondering why, for the life of her, he seemed so familiar. 

She leans in even closer, her heart racing and her eyes avidly drinking him in, nearly hypnotized by his inhuman beauty, and she leans in so close and so quickly that the oil from her lamp drips onto his skin, searing him. 

Her husband jolts up, yelping, and grabs at his injured arm, his eyes flying to meet her own. 

“_ You _,” she breathes, shocked, elated, excited to find herself looking eye to eye with the charming hunter she met in the woods; the one she spent days thinking about after first encountering him. 

“_ You _ !” he cries angrily, mimicking her. “ _ Do you realize what you’ve done!” _he roars, shoving his face into her own, and Tohru rears back, looking up at him helplessly. 

She gestures wildly with her hands, and her husband’s eye fixes on one of them. “N-No, I-I’m sorry!” 

“You were planning on betraying me!” he screams, his heartbreak and confusion evident beneath his rage, and Tohru feels tears track down her cheeks in rivulets, at a loss on how to explain herself. 

“No, please, believe me-“ 

“I have to go,” he interrupts, looking away from her, his eyes fiercely golden and wild, frightening her. “I have to leave.” 

“Please don’t!” she cries, lunging towards him, but her husband sends her a scathing, tear-filled glare, and looks towards the balcony. 

Large, dove-white wings unfurl from his back and in a flurry of hurried, frantic movement, he shoots away from her, flying out into the night. 

Tohru stares after him in shock, her tears still trailing down her cheeks. She glares at the dagger she holds in her hand and throws it across the room, turning her face into her hands and weeping loudly, scared and confused, feeling overwhelmed. 

After a few moments, she attempts to stand, determined to go after her husband and find him herself, nearly wild with the desire to see him again, when she feels the ground beneath her shake. 

She looks around frantically, trying to get a grip on her bearings. The walls tremble dangerously around her, freezing her in place with fear, and she looks out of the windows to see the world outside tilting. 

She glances down and sees the palace floor disappear from beneath her shaking feet, and Tohru screams loudly, hurtling towards the ground. 

* * *

He stumbles into her rooms and Akito jerks from her chaise, her eyes wide. She rushes up to meet him. 

“Kyo!” 

“Your ointment,” he spits through gritted teeth. “I need your ointment.” 

She eyes his bicep, red and inflamed and dripping with gleaming rivulets of ichor. She rolls her eyes and stomps off to grab the small bottle, her lips tightening as he snatches it from her hands. 

Kyo drops down onto the chaise she was lounging on before and dips his fingers into the minty-smelling paste, rubbing it onto his arm, hissing loudly. 

He hears Akito scoff from the corner of the room, and he watches as she comes over with a single goblet of wine that Kyo snatches from her and drinks from greedily.

“You could have gone to Hatori,” she mutters, sitting down across from him. 

He settles down into the cushions, already feeling the affects of the alcohol. 

“Didn’t want to,” he breathes, trying to get a grip through the mind-numbing pain. “He would have given me hell over it.” 

“Rightfully so,” she says, resting a soft cheek onto her palm. “How did you manage to get burned by god’s flame anyway? Only middling gods ever make that mistake anymore.” 

Kyo sends her a glare, his throat tight and his facial muscles stiff. 

_ Damned shoulder, _he thinks furiously, sluggishly. 

“Very well then,” Akito says, standing and taking her own goblet from a table, pouring wine into it and taking a sip. “I wanted to speak to you anyway.” 

Kyo tries to ask what for, but his tongue feels chalky in his mouth, dry and solid. He swallows desperately, trying to moisten his throat. 

“I wanted to thank you,” she says, coming around to sit down in front of him. “For doing such a wonderful job.” 

He watches her silently, his heart racing. 

“I heard about the princess; how she married a monster, disgraced by her family forever.” Akito laughs cruelly, taking another languid sip of her wine. She lays a hand on his shoulder. 

“Imagine that! She married a monster!” She looks down at him, and Kyo watches with dread as her face nears, feels her nails dig into the burn on his shoulder. “She married an _ ugly _ , _ pathetic _ , _ foolish, wretched monster. _” 

He tries to say her name, anything, but all that comes out is long wheeze, the sound painful and tearing at his throat. 

“I knew that I couldn’t trust you. I knew it, but Shigure tried to convince me. What you both don’t realize is that I am not a fool. I have other resources aside from _ you _.”

Her talons dig into his bicep and his mind goes white with agony, his mouth opening in a silent scream, his stiff body shuddering. 

“So what did she do, Kyo, to enchant you so far from sense?” she sneers, her face inches from his own. 

_ Nothing _ , he thinks, wants to say but can’t. _ Nothing. She simply was. _

Akito’s full lips form a tiny pout and she leans away from him slightly, her eyes drifting. “There is no point in asking you questions when you’re like this. It wouldn’t do any good.”

Kyo’s heart beats frantically in his chest, pounding against his ribcage and filling his slackening body with a dull pain. 

Akito turns back to him and settles a gentle hand onto his cheek, caressing it, her touch a poison he wants to shy away from. 

“Tohru,” he tries to say, but his lips won’t obey him, will hardly move, but somehow Akito manages to understand; in the way that she always will, with as connected as they still manage to be, them cursed deities of love. 

“Oh don’t you worry, Kyo,” she coos, pressing a chaste kiss to his frozen lips, her eyes gleaming and bright on his own. 

_ Hideous _ , he thinks, his vision blurring. _ Hideous _. 

“I’ll take care of your princess from now on.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- a special thank you to all my discord friends who put up with me constantly agonizing over this fic. yall are legends💖💖
> 
> \- also psyche going blind when eros was around isn’t in the myth. in the actual myth, psyche can see perfectly fine but eros is invisible which is why she can’t see him. i always thought this was silly. well a long time ago i read this fic where the author made psyche temporarily blind instead of having eros be invisible. all credit for the idea goes to them. here’s the fic!! i would give it a read [falling into chaos](https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10446526/1/Falling-Back-Into-Chaos)
> 
> \- also yes! psyche is pregnant in the myth! and so is tohru here bc i actually like the element.
> 
> \- i referenced this before but aphrodite was originally a semetic goddess from mesopotamia. she mentions it here. 
> 
> _zephyr_\- i made kureno zephyr! it seemed to fit.
> 
> _polydegmôn_\- one of hades’s epithets. means “host of many”. since jewels came from underground, hades was believed to be a wealthy god.

**Author's Note:**

> explanations:
> 
> _hare_\- is the sacred animal of the god eros. this is the reason why i didn't go with a cat. i know. it's tragic.
> 
> _roses_\- the sacred flower of the god eros. tohru is seen holding them a lot in here for *unknown* reasons.
> 
> _Khaos_\- Khaos was the nothingness of which the primordial gods were born from. in here, i characterized it by showing that it still exists within them and distinguishes them by giving them a more frightening appearance by changing their eye color and their tone of voice. this further cements kyo's "otherness" when compared to gods like shigure and akito, who aren't primordial gods.
> 
> _morpheus_\- god of dreams. 
> 
> _eros_\- in greek mythology, eros has two interpretations. in this fic, i went with the phanes/primordial god interpretation because making him akito's son would be weird and because it's another thing that makes him fearful and more "monstrous" to the other, younger gods. 
> 
> _aphrodite_\- aphodite is also quite an old goddess because of her connections both to the ancient persian goddesses ishtar and astarte, who became aphrodite once they reached greece. this is why kyo and akito are functionally on the same level even though he is technically older than she is.
> 
> _protogonos, protogenoi_\- two of eros' epithets. it means primordial god or one of the primordial gods.


End file.
